Greater Manchester joins call for climate justice at COP30

This year’s summit, which kicked off this week, is a key milestone in the negotiations. It marks ten years since the landmark Paris Agreement was signed, which saw world leaders commit to a goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Taking place in Brazil, the conference is the first in several years that climate advocates and campaigners are able to gather and organize freely to pitch their demands for bold and fair climate solutions directly to decision makers.

Given the summit’s proximity to the Amazon rainforest, global efforts to end deforestation will be a major focus at this year’s talks. The deadline for a key pact to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 – an agreement made by 140 global leaders at the Glasgow climate talks in 2021 – is fast approaching, yet progress has been shockingly slow.

The impacts of deforestation aren’t purely environmental, with human rights abuses leveled at those who defend and depend on the world’s precious forests rife. Indigenous communities, from Malaysia to Brazil, have seen their homes ripped away from them, resources stolen, and land customs trashed.

That’s why the Greater Manchester Climate Justice Coalition will be amplifying calls for the UK government to reinvigorate ambition for ending deforestation at this year’s talks. UK decision makers can make a start by adopting a new law to hold UK companies accountable for harm to people and the environment here and overseas.

The group also calls on the UK government to recognize the role of Indigenous communities as the best protectors of the world’s forests. Too often sidelined at the negotiations, their voices should be at the forefront of the global effort to save these vital ecosystems.

Alongside these demands, the Greater Manchester Climate Justice Coalition is urging the UK government to:

1. Honour the UK’s climate targets and deliver a fair transition
2. Provide justice for communities on the front lines of climate breakdown in the UK and overseas
3. Make polluters pay to help fund a cleaner, fairer future

Last year was confirmed as the hottest year on record, while also being the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5°C warming globally. Breaching the 1.5°C target, which would need to see sustained temperatures of over 1.5°C across a period of years, could trigger multiple climate tipping points that could dangerously destabilise our climate and exacerbate extreme weather worldwide.

Catherine Thomson, Manchester Friends of the Earth co-ordinator, said:

“It’s been ten years since the Paris Agreement was signed, but the strong action we urgently need still hasn’t been delivered. Instead, we’re inching ever closer to breaching the 1.5°C threshold.

“Climate impacts are spiralling – from deadly floods and fierce storms to record-breaking heatwaves – harming people and nature everywhere.

“As one of the world’s biggest historical polluters, the UK has a responsibility to help steer the talks to success and contribute meaningfully to global climate action. That means honouring our climate targets, championing the drive to end deforestation, delivering justice for impacted communities through proper climate finance and policies that tackle the dual crises of climate and inequality, and making polluters pay to help fund the green transition.”

Linda Walker, Greater Manchester Climate Justice Coalition said:

“Climate Justice means that the countries which have done most to create climate change – including the UK with our historical carbon emissions – need to provide funds to the countries most affected by climate chaos, who have done the least to cause it.

“Keir Starmer has pledged, at the COP30 summit, to ‘double down on the climate fight.’ But his actions fall far short of these stirring words.

“The Tropical Forests Forever Fund is an important new initiative which aims to make the forest more valuable standing than when they are cut down and exploited. The UK was one of those involved in developing the plan, but Starmer has refused to invest a penny in the new fund.

“At the same time, his Government is considering allowing the enormous Rosebank Oilfield to go ahead and refusing to tax the billionaires and the giant corporations who are doing so much to exacerbate both the climate crisis and obscene levels of global inequality.

“We will be on the streets on Saturday demanding ‘Save our Forests,’ ‘No New Oil,’ ‘Tax the Rich,’ ‘Make Polluters Pay.'”