“Brussels could be underwater if EU leaders don’t take action on climate change.” That was the stark message delivered by Friends of the Earth Europe and WWF today to European institutions around the city.
The activists wore lifejackets whilst they distributed information to highlight the threat of rising sea levels to cities across the planet. Global temperature rises and the subsequent melting of the ice caps could cause disastrous flooding reaching from the coast to the political centre of the European Union.
The groups called on the EU leaders to take concerted action following the increased certainty of the scenarios presented in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Brook Riley, Friends of the Earth Europe climate justice campaigner said: “European leaders need to turn the tide of their climate policy. They need three ambitious, binding targets for 2030 to cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce energy consumption and vastly increase renewable energy generation.”
The European Union has committed to keep global warming below 2°C but the agreed climate programme actually assumes a 50/50 chance of overshooting this figure. Two degrees of warming is the generally accepted as the level beyond which the temperature rises will be catastrophic to life on earth.
Brook Riley concluded “There is a frightening disconnect between the science of climate change and EU action. The fact is that Europe’s leaders are gambling our entire future on the same odds as the toss of a coin.”
