The Hague UN Climate Meeting

International Friends build dike and attend mass One Saturday in November at the Hague climate summit Keighley Friends of the Earth delegates were part of a dike building party inside the conference grounds. World leaders were gathered inside the building to thrash out global warming responsibilities. Outside the building Sonia Atkins from Keighley Friends of the Earth put up the first banner it read ‘Cut the Crap’. The building of the dike symbolized holding back the rising sea levels. There was fantastic effort being made by non-government organisations on both the inner and outer grounds of the conference where chains of people formed to move mounds of sand into sandbags and create massive walls. The Dutch environmental minister came out to meet the crowd and passed sandbags to Barry Goodwin and Jane Howie from Keighley. Peter Morrel another Keighley Friends of the Earth member was picked out from the crowd to be interviewed by a press agency who were after a youths interpretation of the global warming problem. The following morning only hours after John Prescott was seen arriving and walking by the dikes a critical mass demonstration took place, which Keighley Friends of the Earth participated in. Traffic throughout the city was brought to a standstill as bikes with solar and peddled powered sound systems, a cycling salsa band and hundreds of push bikes made their way from the central station to the conference centre. The nations of Europe inside the conference were insisting that the US who account for 4% of world population and produce a quarter of world greenhouse gases must be limited from trading gas emissions with other countries and take action to reduce growing energy consumption. Please contact Keighley Friends of the Earth via our E-mail address is you would like to join in further actions on jane@keighleyfoe.free-online.co.uk