Choose Positive Energy petition hand in
Greenpeace and The Body Shop presented 1,602,489 signatures to the Earth Summit in the form of an interactive mural calling upon delegates to agree to get clean, reliable, renewable energy into the hands of 2 billion of the world's poorest people by 2010.
Greenpeace and The Body Shop teamed up about a year ago to create the Choose Positive Energy Campaign, launched in January of this year. The demand: that governments vastly expand renewable energy for people across the world - the industrialised governments should expand their renewable energy supplies and all governments should commit to providing small-scale renewable solutions like solar and wind power, small-scale hydro, and biomass, to the world's poorest.
The total cost of getting renewable energy to the world's poorest 2 billion people is estimated to be less than half of the $500+ billion that is likely to be invested over the next decade in fossil fuel power stations and infrastructure in poorer countries. For just $1.4 billion, clean renewable energy could be supplied to 1 million schools and health care centres, serving some 600 million people.
Around the world, people added their voices and signatures to the call, either at the Choose Positive Energy website or on petitions at Body Shop stores in 27 countries.
The mural will be a permanent fixture in a part of central Johannesburg identified with protests against Apartheid and now an emerging multi-cultural artistic hub of the city.
Painted by a team of local community artists, the mural incorporates a selection of the 1.5 million signatures and allows members of the public to add their own signatures - so it remains a living statement of intent.
To the music of Baaba Maal and the words of UK Environment minister Michael Meecher, people gathered in front of three huge buildings enigmatically sheathed in hessian coverings. Baaba Maal led the entire gathering to the edges of the mural and once everyone was assembled, he loosened the cloth. The striking art work underneath represents the transition from 'negative' fossil fuel energy to cleaner 'positive' renewable/sustainable energy sources and the represents that hopes and aspirations of millions of people for a clean and sustainable future.
"... It is not just the poorest who are suffering in their every day lives in order to survive. The poorest are the ones who will feel the major impacts of the unfolding climate crisis being brought on by global warming. This is not a catastrophe waiting to hit - it is already hitting - and it is going to get worse," said Baaba Maal.
Global warming, caused by burning fossil fuels, threatens people's lives around the world. While the world's poorest people use only a fraction of the world's oil, coal and gas, they are likely to suffer most from extreme weather events such as floods and storms if no action is taken. Rising sea levels threaten to engulf entire countries in the Indian and Pacific oceans. If we are going to stop the earth's climate spinning out of control, most of the world's reserves of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas cannot be used for energy and must stay underground. We must make the switch to positive energy at home and globally.
