Greenpeace counts down to climate change conference

Greenpeace showing support at Yongdingmen for the Copenhagen climate meeting.

By Zheng Lu

 

 

 

 

People bundled up against the cold at the Yongdingmen tower Monday evening to see the markings that would appear on the ancient wall. Then appeared the words “Time is running out to stop global warming,” shone by a projector. Below them were the number of days, hours and seconds until the 2009 climate change conference in Denmark. 

 

 

“The world is now in imminent peril. The acceleration of global warming has outpaced our expectations,” said Li Yan, a campaigner for Greenpeace China, organizer of the event. “The Copenhagen climate meeting is humanity’s last chance to save the world from a catastrophic climate crisis.” 

This December, the UN Climate Change Report Summit will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in which world leaders are expected to sign a new accord to cope with climate change. This would be a history-making pact following the 2005 Kyoto Protocol, Li said. 

Apart from launching the countdown, the event Monday featured a short film showing various natural calamities such as floods, blizzards and droughts brought about by global warming. China was shown to be among the countries facing an especially severe environmental crisis; the increase of temperature in the country is higher than the global average, and more than 80 percent of its glaciers in the west are continuously melting.

 The country is expected to face water and food shortages because of climate change, Li said. “As one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases, China should and must do more to avoid the disastrous aftermath of global warming.” 

Greenpeace has urged President Hu Jintao to attend the climate summit in Copenhagen and draw up a pact beneficial to people and the environment. 

The environmental NGO presented to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Beijing last month an hourglass and a letter appealing for the two countries to cooperate in the fight against global warming.  

“Through the US Embassy, she passed on the message that she has taken note of our appeal,” Li Jiange, media officer at Greenpeace China, said. He said the best response would be to see the US and Chinworking together to combat climate change.

 

Hans Xu, another Greenpeace officer, did not discount the contributions that ordinary citizens can make. “The average person should do their best to reduce the use of gas and energy,” he said. People can do this by switching off unnecessary lights and taking the bus or subway instead of driving. Xu said the NGO will be holding a series of activities in various cities to remind people of the importance of energy conservation and pollution reduction. 

Beijing residents who witnessed the countdown at Yongdingmen gave different reactions. “If we do everything that is considered environmentally-friendly, life wuld become more inconvenient and the economy will suffer,” one man said. “I think the best way to go is to ask people to give up driving and take public transportation,” said another man who supported the Green peace initiative. 

The NGO has launched a Web site, icare.greenpeace.cn, and invited people to take part in the “I care” movement, which campaigns against global warming. The organization also invited citizens to participate in their monthly pro-environment events leading up to the opening of the Copenhagen summit.