Environment, Human Security and WILPF

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom has a strong focus on the environment and works hard to promote sustainable development worldwide. For WILPF the term sustainable development expresses the concept of providing the basic requirements for life and human dignity for all -- present and future -- in a way consistent with the ecological reality of our human existence. The overall objectives of and essential requirements for sustainable development are poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and protecting and managing natural resources.

In a time where our planet is suffering from rising levels of carbon dioxide emission and the growing threat of global warming is becoming more and more evident, greater efforts are needed to be taken in order to slow down and stop this current development. If such efforts are not made, none of us, not even the wealthiest, will succeed in escaping the effects of drastic climate changes such as lack of drinking water, destruction of soil productivity and a rapid decrease of biodiversity.

WILPF also works hard to combat and shed light on the devastating consequences that war and preparation for war have on the environment. Environmental damages such as pollution of air, water and land; unregulated plunder of natural resources and the negative impacts of mass population movements on the environment are often common in times of war and are in many cases only reversible in the long term. WILPF therefore argues that a just and fair sustainable way of living will not be possible without a radical transformation of society. We have to transform the idea that security equals military might to security equaling the wellbeing of every human being, a society based on universal human rights, justice, peace and respect for the natural world upon which we depend.

International campaign: “Don’t nuke the climate”

WILPF has recently joined the international campaign “Don’t nuke the climate”. The campaign aims at bringing organisations and world citizens together concerning the refusal of nuclear weapons as solutions to global warming and hopes to contribute in joined efforts to allow the antinuclear voice to be heard even stronger in Copenhagen at the COP-15 Conference in December.

For more information about the campaign or to register your NGO as a partner of the campaign “Don’t nuke the Climate”, visit the campaign website at: http://www.dont-nuke-the-climate.org/spip.php?lang=en.

United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-15) 7 – 18 December 2009

Between the 7 – 18 December the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop-15) will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. WILPF will be present at the Conference to document its development as well as to shed light on the horrific health and environmental cost that nuclear energy has on the world and its habitants.

The Conference could be seen as a crucial meeting between the world’s governments in order to determine the work of the following years towards a better climate. The main goal of the Conference will be to try to come to a global unity concerning a new climate agreement that will entry into force when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997 much has happened concerning the development of the climate and a new agreement that would be agreed upon globally by all countries would be a huge step in the right direction for a better climate.

Whereas standstills and internal disagreements have been present on several occasions during the earlier COP Conferences, history has also shown that the conference can be a platform for countries to unite and to quickly move forward together. For this year’s Conference WILPF hopes to see that the world’s governments will take their responsibility to act and together agree on the means necessary to protect our environment.

WILPF side event: “False promises of nuclear energy” at COP15, Saturday 12 December 2009, 11.00 am - 12.30 pm.

System change – not climate change: A People’s Declaration from Klimaforum09
(English version -- Spanish version)

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UK WILPF Report November 2007:
Making War on the Earth - The Enviromental Consequences of War and Corporate Power - a gender perspective

Newsletters of the Environmental Working Group

February 2010

October 2009

July 2009 (as a web document) July 2009 (as a printer friendly PDF)

April 2009

January 2009

January - February 2008

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