Christian Aid along with Greenpeace, People & Planet, Friends of the Earth and the World Development Movement, was invited to conduct a workshop at the climate camp near Heathrow airport.
Eliot Whittington, Christian Aid’s senior UK political adviser spoke at the workshop and some of the Cut the Carbon marchers took time out to give their first-hand experience of climate change.
Eliot sent in this account of the workshop:
‘The planet is knocking on our door. It is asking for relief.’ Cut the Carbon marcher, Rosalia Soley from El Salvador spoke passionately to an attentive group of activists at the climate change camp.
This short-term camp settlement has the feel of an especially earnest music festival, if perhaps a bit quieter. Its residents are rightly proud of the efficient way they’ve organised things and their intense adherence to consensus-based decisions.
The site they have chosen is not the nicest of campsites – the potential location of a third runway is a perfect place to watch a constant stream of planes landing and taking off; it is also has a clear view of one of the nearby Holiday Inns.
Local campaigners against the expansion of Heathrow mix with green activists of all ages, and some of them came to hear Christian Aid’s marchers speak about the global impacts of climate change on poor countries and what can be done.
Cassia Bechara, from Brazil, spoke about the communities which have been evicted and the forests which have been lost in the indiscriminate rush to grow sugar cane for bio-fuel, prompted by fears over global warming.
Simon White from Gloucestershire talked about how his home has been affected in the recent flooding, and his fears about how much worse it would be for someone without access to the same resources and support as his family.
All three marchers felt a sense of recognition in the messages on banners draped from many of the tents around the site.
Rosalia explained: ‘Climate change is part of the economic system – the model that we live in. If we don’t address poverty and inequality, we cannot address climate change.’