From December 7th to 18th 2009, the United Nations are holding a global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.¹⁾²⁾ This is the successor to the Kyoto conference, held in December 1997.³⁾ It will be the second time that nations have sat down to agree something binding about climate change and many are dubbing it “the most important meeting in human history”.⁴⁾

As far as we know at the moment, Jersey will not be represented at Copenhagen, other than by the fact that the UK will be there and we are considered to be a small part of Great Britain. Equally, as far as we know, there will be no requirement for Jersey to agree or to ratify any treaty that emerges from the summit.

“To maximise our chances of preventing runaway climate change, we must quickly and massively cut global emissions. To quickly and massively cut global emissions we need a binding international treaty and the last chance we have to get that treaty within the timescale of the physics of the planet is the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December this year.”⁵⁾ This, we feel, is not something that the States of Jersey can let pass by without taking any notice.

Therefore, J-CAN has prepared a petition and we will be gathering signatures across the island (and further afield if people want to lend their voice).

“We, the undersigned, petition the States of Jersey as follows: Following publication of the targets agreed at the Copenhagen Conference, the Council of Ministers should give detailed consideration to these targets and report back to the States within six months of the closing date of the Conference on how they intend to respond, their report to include detailed proposals and timescales.”

There are several ways you can get involved and lend your voice at this crucial moment in human history.

1. We will be contacting various shops and other public-facing organisations to ask if they will help by placing a copy of the petition on the counter and allowing people to sign up to it.
2. We will be creating opportunities for people to talk to us and sign the petition face-to-face as time goes by. The first of these will be in King Street, St Helier, from about 10.00 am to 12.00 midday on Saturday 5th September. We will be around the planted-up cider-press near the cut-through to Broad Street.
3. You can download the petition from this website, print it out and sign it. Please try to get your friends, family and work colleagues to sign it too, then post it back to us at the address on the sheet. We need them back by November 15th to be counted in time for a States debate regarding the conference before it starts.
4. If you have a website or a blog, you can have a go at displaying our 'Countdown to Copenhagen' counter on your pages, like we have here on the main pages. You need to be able to paste a small piece of HTML into your page to make it show up. Clicking on the counter will bring people to this page, where they can get involved themselves. Visit the show the counter page to get the HTML and some more details about how to do this.

Unfortunately we cannot collect signatures on line as the States would rather see a proper, old-fashioned paper petition, we're told. Also, please don't be tempted to sign it twice, or to add 'Mr D. Duck' or 'M. Mouse, esq' to boost the numbers. People will be going through it signature by signature ensuring all are valid before a final count is made.