Only emergency brake can help now
Oliver Worm, Greenpeace climate expert

A new record storm. The worst floods in living memory. The longest drought since weather statistics were first recorded. One after another, reports such as these are having a marked influence on news and reporting in the international media. Whether the issue be climate refugees and those seeking asylum from other environmental catastrophes, or wars over water and what is left of the world's oil; be it astronomically high economic damages, or an overtaxed UN Disaster Corps - the climate, having been thrown off balance, has for a long time been shaping international relations.

Scientists and environmental organisations have warned of this collapse for over thirty years - and only now are they being listened to. Too late! All that can help now is a radical change in the economic system. The phaseout of nuclear and fossil sources of energy, which could have been implemented 25 years ago, must be effected worldwide immediately - meaning without any easing periods of transition. All investment must go into establishing a global economy with a solar base, one using closed-loop systems and producing as little toxic waste as possible.

Rigid measures must be taken to ensure a strict ban in the former industrialised countries on the consumption of all products harmful to the climate. If we do not apply the emergency brake hard now, the world's next generations will have no chance at all.

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