Campaigning in 2007

“The spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor”
Isaiah 3 14-15

During 2007 we are encouraging churches to campaigns for:-

Climate Change
Trade Justice
Debt Relief
Fairtrade
HIV/AIDs
Millennium Development Goals
The situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
The situation in Zimbabwe

Campaigning in 2007
Below are some useful links for you to learn more about the campaigns we are supporting. Please do not feel you have to support all.

Climate Change:

Commitment for Life will be working with Christian Aid, WDM and Operation Noah in the coming year to inform and inspire churches to take action.

Action:
Christian Aid is calling for a UK carbon budget to limit the amount of greenhouse gases that the UK can produce each year - we currently produce 2 per cent of the world’s carbon.

A carbon budget would require the government to set a budget for carbon emissions - in the same way as it sets a budget for the economy. This would be a clear target for the annual reduction of carbon emissions needed for the UK's contribution to stopping climate change.

They want the UK government to help poor countries to adapt to the already inevitable changes in the climate. The UK is a huge polluter which has benefited from the burning of fossil fuels. It is now our duty to compensate poor countries for the cost of adapting to the challenges posed by climate change.
Tony Blair has already recognised the scale of the problem: However, the UK has recently backed away from its previously agreed target of reducing UK emissions 20 per cent by 2010. This isn't good enough.

Send a letter to Tony Blair through Pressureworks

Facts:
In 2004, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that CO2 emissions would increase by another 63 per cent by the year 2030. The IEA said this would ensure that the earth warmed up by between a further 0.5°C and 2°C by 2050 – an increase that would certainly have devastating implications for poor countries.
Further information from Pressureworks

Story:
Mazeda Begum, from Balashighat in northern Bangladesh tells of her struggle against river erosion and flooding
Read the complete story

WDM:

Read all about WDM’s climate change campaign and their Date with climate disaster: A new ‘Climate calendar’ shows that by the end of Monday 8 January 2007 the average person in Britain will have already produced as much CO2 as the average person in the world’s poorest countries will all year.

Link to WDM

Worship resources from Operation Noah

Cool church toolkit, prayers, magazine articles
Click here for resources

Trade Justice

Right Corporate Wrongs:
Campaign brings new laws for trade justice
Successful campaigning during the 2006 by the Trade Justice Movement, Christian Aid, Traidcraft and many more has resulted in new accountability laws for companies being achieved.
The Companies Bill has concluded its passage through Parliament and has been give royal assent (as the Companies Act 2006). The Trade Justice Movement has welcomed the Companies Act as a step forward towards greater corporate responsibility, but warns the new legislation has not gone far enough to ensure that British business will work for people and planet as well as profit.
Companies Act - an update on the outcome

Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)
EPA’s are trade deals being negotiated now between the European Union (including the UK) and 77 poor countries - mostly former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific. Negotiations were launched in 2002 and are due to complete at the end of 2007. They will be 'ratified’ in 2007/8 and are due to come in to force in 2008.
All the major charities and development agencies want to stop EPAs in their current form and develop alternative trade deals which will enable poor countries and poor people to develop and benefit from trade.
To find out more visit: Traicraft, Trade Justice Movement, Christian Aid

Jubilee Debt

On 18th December 2006, Sierra Leone finally finished the international debt relief scheme - which means that after years of meeting onerous conditions imposed by the rich world, it will now get cancellation of debts totalling 1.6 billion US dollars.
www.jubilledebtcampaign.org.uk