Join Global Day of Action, urges BYM
‘Rich countries like the UK have done the most to cause the climate crisis, and owe the rest of the world an immense “climate debt”.’
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has urged Friends to join the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice on 6 November to push for ‘just solutions to the climate crisis’.
The call came in a statement published ahead of the UN COP26 negotiations, which draws on minutes from this summer’s Yearly Meeting Gathering and suggestions from Young Friends and Meeting for Sufferings. The statement calls for loss and damage finance and a global just transition beyond fossil fuels, and articulates a core principle of climate justice: ‘Rich countries like the UK have done the most to cause the climate crisis, and owe the rest of the world an immense “climate debt”.’
Olivia Hanks, economics and sustainability programme manager for BYM, said: ‘COP26 is a huge moment for the UK climate movement, and Quakers around the country are very much part of that. It has been amazing to see such creativity and passion for climate justice as Quakers prepared for COP26… As today’s statement says, Quakers cannot and will not stand by and see everything we love destroyed. We know COP26 will not deliver climate justice – this is a long struggle. But when we take action together, we are powerful, and we are part of a mass movement of people that will not be defeated.’
As well as criticising the UK government’s approach to climate action and ‘broken promises’ around access to COP26, the statement is a call to action for Friends, for ‘Our faith does not permit us to stand by while the splendour of the world is destroyed for short-term profit’.
On 6 November, Quakers will be joining the ‘faith and belief bloc’ as part of the marches in Glasgow and London. Marchers in Glasgow will gather at the Stewart Memorial Fountain in Kelvingrove Park at 11.30am, while the faith and belief bloc in London will meet outside St Michael Cornhill Church on Cornhill at noon. Both marches will conclude with a rally from 3-4pm, on Glasgow Green and in Trafalgar Square. Glasgow and Westminster Meeting Houses will be open for hot drinks.
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