A thousand miles for the world

CAFOD campaigner Rachel Tavernor, 19, walked 1,000 miles through the UK with climate campaigners from around the world [Paul Green/CAFOD]

Rachel Tavenor joined worldwide activists on a gruelling UK-wide march in summer 2007, raising awareness of climate change. She tells how, although the march has finished, her work has just begun

The Cut the Carbon march has ended but the fight for climate justice has only just begun. Our changing climate is an emergency, but also a matter of profound global injustice.

In the face of this development agencies such as CAFOD and Christian Aid cannot remain silent – and neither can we!

I’ve been shouting, singing and talking about climate justice all summer with marchers from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The Christian Aid march began the longest protest march in UK history on July 14 in Northern Ireland. Since then we have sailed across the Irish Sea, marched across Scotland, through England, around Wales and ended at the London Stock Exchange on 2nd October covering over 1000 miles on foot.

Drastic cuts

But we weren’t just walking, we were drawing attention to our call on the UK government to act.

The fact is the developed world needs to make a drastic cut to our carbon emissions to stop our global average rise to over two degrees celsius.

A two degree rise will rapidly increase flooding, desertification, higher levels of malaria and other diseases across the world.

We have to take action now to stop these catastrophic affects. The message is clear, the science is indisputable – we need to cut UK carbon emissions by at least an 80% by 2050.

The Climate Change Bill is currently being discussed in parliament and we are trying to make sure it is as strong and effective as possible. CAFOD wants to see a target of at least 80% carbon reductions included in the bill.

We also want to ensure that the UK’s share of emissions from international aviation and shipping are included in the reduction targets and that it includes binding carbon budgets with annual milestones, to make sure that emissions reductions do not go off track

Our march took us around the country talking to thousands of people at local evening events, big rallies in cities and to the people we walked past.

We had some negative responses from people shouting out their car window to "get a car!" but the majority were really positive.

Fantastic ideas

My favourite responses were from the children in the schools that we visited en route. They understood and expressed how unfair the situation was; that the poorest people who have contributed the least carbon emissions are suffering the most.

They also had fantastic ideas of how we can reduce our own carbon footprints, by walking more, recycling and turning the lights off.

My friends and family laughed when I told them that I was going to walk a thousand miles saying "You don’t like walking" - and they were right.

But for me it wasn’t a walk, it was a protest to stand up for the poorest people who are already suffering the effects of climate change.

We lobbied many MPs on the way and attended the Labour Party Conference, where Rosalia from El Salvador and Mohammed from Kenya explained to Gordon Brown the very real experiences of climate change in their countries.

The 81-day journey was not just a physical one. I have learnt so much more from the international marchers about how climate change is happening and how the people in their country are tackling the consequences.

I found the experience very emotional, living together in intense circumstances made me sometimes feel like I was on Big Brother! But the tough times brought the group together to become a family.

Now I’m beginning university and about to embark on a new adventure, but I feel invigorated from my experience and totally committed to keep on challenging the systems which keep people poor.

At the beginning of the march we sang ‘We shall not give up the fight we have only started’ and as we marched trough the city streets of London, 81 days later, we continued to sing the song.

There has never been a more pressing time to act. So I beg of you to act, to engage with your MP and shout it from the rooftops that you want climate justice!

This article was first published in The Catholic Times on October 21, 2007

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