Click here for photo of Trafalgar Square. 


John Marjoram, who organised a coach from Stroud, said: "It was a wonderful coalition of different groups with a sea of Green party banners - other parties still haven't woken up to the urgency of it all, but hopefully with Stern report and this march they will be pushed into taking the actions that are needed."
There was also a small demonstration in Stroud by those unable to attend the march in London.  Claire Sheriden, the Green party's candidate for Stonehouse District Council elections, who organised the Stroud event says she was delighted with the response and was also able to give out advice about local projects like the Car Club.

Green party banners dominated the march in London. Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas speaking to the crowds said: “Whatever Stern says, this isn’t an abstract argument about economics, it’s about the reality that our current consumption and production patterns are killing people – and it can only get worse. The price of inaction will be measured in lives lost, not pounds spent. Many thousands around the world are paying the price for our lifestyles in the affluent West: men, women and children in Africa are dying, right now, from famines and droughts driven by climate change (i)."

Cllr Philip Booth, a Stroud District Green party spokesperson said: “In the week in which the Stern report has been published it is clearer than ever that we need urgent global action if we are to prevent the worst impacts of devastating climate change. But we are not close to seeing this. Our government continues to support a massive road-building programme and the biggest expansion of the aviation industry – the fastest growing contributor to greenhouse gas emissions – for a generation. How on earth can Mr Blair claim to understand the nature of the climate threat whilst maintaining his support for an Aviation White paper that predicts a three-fold increase in air traffic over the next few decades when he knows perfectly well this will contribute to rising greenhouse gas emissions and undermine any reductions by more responsible industries?"

Philip Booth added: “Mr Blair has a shameful record of trying to undermine EU legislation designed to cut emissions – and yet he has the gall to call on other EU member states to co-operate further on climate change. But perhaps worst of all, Labour has presided over a period of rising – not falling – CO2 emissions, and a failure of international leadership on the issue which has allowed the world’s biggest climate villain, the US, to remain outside the Kyoto protocol, the only international treaty designed to prevent climate catastrophe.

Dr Caroline Lucas speaking after the event said: “Next week, government representatives from around the world will meet in Nairobi to discuss a successor treaty to Kyoto. If Blair is to close the gap between his rhetoric and his inaction on the issue he must try to bring all the world’s nations on board, by persuading the US and Australia that failure to act is criminally and morally – as well as economically – negligent, and negotiating a treaty based on the principal of Contraction and Convergence, under which poorer nations will be allowed to continue sustainable economic development while those richer nations most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions do most to cut them. Nicholas Stern this week told us that climate change represents a ‘massive market failure’. Yes it does, but it also represents a massive political failure too. Stern tells us that tackling climate change is the only way to preserve our ability to pursue economic growth, when the reality is just the opposite: our single-minded pursuit of economic growth will render us incapable of tackling climate change. We don’t need any more reports, we need action.”


Notes to Editors:

(i) Dr Lucas’s speech is available to download from
www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk/speeches/ClimateRally_04Nov06