To demonstrate the devastating effect that rising sea levels will have on the Studland Peninsula Extinction Rebellion today placed HIGH TIDE ‘signposts’ at points along Ferry Road, that climate change modelling suggests high tides would reach in 2040, 2060, 2080 and 2100. They also had a number of banners placed so that users of the ferry understood what they were doing.
Matt Sheard of Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole XR said that by engaging with the public while queuing for the ferry and toll booth “we wanted to raise awareness of sea level rise. We asked people to support Extinction Rebellion to put pressure on governments to act now. If they did not want to join XR we suggested they contact their MP to express their concern that not enough is being done to tackle global heating. We also suggested Five Simple Things that they could do to reduce their personal impact on the planet. Overall, the responses have been very positive”.
This action was part of a nationwide protest by Extinction Rebellion called Make The Wave, and was in preparation for the G7 summit that will be held in Cornwall from the 11th to the 13th June. The G7 Summit will play a crucial role in climate negotiations this year, laying the path for the G20 Summit and COP26. The need for G7 countries to step up their ambition and make good on their promises has never been greater.
Liz Brereton, an XR activist from Dorset, says: “In reality none of the G7 nations are delivering their promises made in Paris in 2015. Their claims to climate leadership are absurd, as not one major economy has implemented policies consistent with limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
“The G7’s recent statements are the absolute minimum that they can get away with. We need to see much more ambition including an immediate end to financing and subsidies for all forms of fossil fuel and a massive scaling up of climate finance assistance to developing countries.”
Greg Lambe from Bournemouth said “We aim to send an unambiguous message to our government and other world leaders that the inaction we’ve seen on the climate and ecological crisis has to change, and change now. The Covid 19 pandemic offered governments a unique chance to change the status-quo but so far they have not seized the opportunity. It is for this reason that we need a proper legal framework like the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill to force the government to protect at-risk areas, such as Studland, from climate catastrophe now. We need to protect our coastlines for ourselves, for nature, and the generations to come who will have to inhabit what we bequeath them.”
Extinction Rebellion is pressing the government to adopt the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) Bill, a new law written with contributions from prominent scientists and academics. If the CEE Bill is made law, the government would have to act fast, accounting for our entire carbon footprint while actively conserving nature here and overseas and involving everyday people in decision making through a citizen’s assembly that has real bite.
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