Climate campaigning in pictures

We take a look at the past few years in our campaign on climate change.

As climate change takes hold and causes more frequent droughts in Kenya, Monica Kilindi (pictured) can no longer rely on the rain to help feed her family. We predict that, by 2020, climate change could leave up to 250 million more people in Sub-Saharan Africa in poverty. In 2007 more evidence from our partners showed that climate change has been rendering tried and tested methods to tackle poverty inadequate.

In 2007 hundreds of campaigners traversed the length and breadth of the UK in our ‘Cut the Carbon’ march. The following year the UK government passed the Climate Change Act — the world’s first act to contain legally binding targets to reduce carbon emissions.

In 2009 our climate choir helped convince then Secretary of State for Climate Change Ed Miliband to stop the building of new coal power stations.

In 2009, ahead of the Copenhagen climate talks 50,000 campaigners demonstrate support for action on climate change at ‘The Wave’ in London.

In 2010 we called on companies to come clean about their own carbon emissions and for the UK government to make sure this was enforced by law. Finally in 2012 they announced that mandatory carbon reporting would be made into law.

In 2011, on the road to the UN climate talks in Durban we supported partners in the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) to take a convoy of caravans over 7,000km from Burundi to South Africa. The caravans carried 229 African farmers, pastoralists, women’s groups and activists to make sure that the voices of the marginalised and vulnerable were heard at the UN.

In 2011 at the climate talks in Durban we also campaigned but failed to save the ‘Kyoto Protocol’ — a vital piece of legislation that ensures that national climate targets of those who signed up were legally binding.

In 2011, alongside Tearfund and CAFOD, in the UK we continued to support the church to be at the heart of the climate movement. At our ‘Bearing Witness’ event in Manchester, thousands of church goers called on the new coalition government to keep its promise to be the greenest ever in a march, rally and open air vigil in late October.

In 2012 after years of campaigning we finally helped get the World Bank out of funding coal power stations in middle income countries.

In 2014 in September the People’s Climate Marches took place across the globe as the UN met for a special climate change summit in New York. These were the biggest climate marches the world had seen to date.

The following month during the ‘Hunger for Justice’ weekend churches began reigniting the climate campaign in the UK by lobbying their MPs to put the climate at the heart of their party manifestos ahead of the 2015 general election. In York Archbishop Sentamu welcomed Philippino climate activist Voltaire Alferez to address the York Synod with his personal experiences of the effects of climate change.

In 2015 thousands of Christian Aid supporters took part in ‘Speak Up’: the biggest ever lobby of parliament on climate justice. Over 330 MPs heard our demands that the newly elected government take action on climate change.

In the last few months we’ve seen great strides in climate campaigning as the UK announced a phase out of coal in October 2015.

Then in November the biggest UK climate march ever took place in London as part of a weekend of marches for the climate across the world.

This was quickly followed by a historic deal at the UN climate talks in Paris which has the potential to be a new dawn for climate campaigning.