Climate activist tells Brown of “deep concern” over Copenhagen

Avaaz, the international online civic organisation, held a successful campaign event in Parliament Square yesterday with one activist giving her opinion straight to Gordon Brown.

According to Reuters, about 300 environmentalists converged on parliament and chanted “tick! tick! tick! tick!” to symbolise a wake-up call to world leaders ahead of December’s U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. On a prearranged cue held up their mobile phones and started calling the government. One, activist Iris Andrews, told Prime Minister Gordon Brown that she was, “deeply concerned that the [Copenhagen] negotiations are way off track.”

During the call Gordon Brown said to Andrews:

“I too am absolutely concerned and worried about the failure to reach agreements on something that’s of vital importance to the future of our planet and I know the scientific evidence about the rise in temperatures that will take place unless we take action, and I know that the commitment to the two degrees is not enough in itself.

“We have got to have binding targets and we have got to have intermediate targets and of course we have got to have a financial agreement that allows the developing countries to be part of this as well.

“So I fully intend to go to Copenhagen.”

Watch it:

The protest was part of a “global wake up call” of coordinated events in 1,000 cities around the world. Avaaz’s website featured phone numbers of dozens of world leaders.