National Delegate Conference 19-22 June 2007

Stop climate chaos now
Past generations didn't know
Future generations will be too late

UNISON laid out its plan to Stop Climate Chaos, calling on central and local government to take positive action now to reduce our carbon footprint through:-

• massive investment in public transport;
• the incorporation of green technologies into council housing;
• legislation requiring public bodies to carry out workplace carbon audits;
• the provision of incentives for carbon reduction.

While the Edinburgh motion on climate change was not heard, the motion passed was long the same lines.

According to Ashok Sinha, Director of Stop Climate Chaos, global warming is a fact and if we don't do something now then the future is very bleak indeed.

Global warming will bring with it impoverishment, conflict and billions of deaths. Ashok explained that if we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and look to clean green sources of power, then 1.1 billion poor people could get clean green electricity to help lift them out of poverty.

There would be benefits for everyone with more open spaces, less reliance on cars, more use of bicycles, low energy houses and industries not built around exploitation but around renewal and recycling processes. Ashok assures that this is not science fiction but could be a reality.

UNISON is one of fifty plus organisations, and the first trade union to sign up to Stop Climate Chaos, which aims to get the political to make real changes. The Kyoto Treaty, the current agreement for industrialised nations to reduce greenhouse gas emission, runs out in 2012.

Ashok said that we need to have sealed a new deal over the next two to three years, "It will be for this generation and this generation only to undo the damage which has been done to the environment. It is a one shot deal.

Previous generations could not know the damage they were doing and future generations will be too late. I don't want to face the consequences, and I don't want my children to face them. It's up to this generation to take the courageous decision now for all of us."

You can find further information on Stop Climate Chaos at http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/

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