Local climate
campaigners are joining with the YMCA to show a film made to highlight the
threat of climate change.
The free screening will take place in the in the charity’s iconic Sky Room on Tuesday 12th December and will coincide with the COP 28 summit.
Of Walking on Thin
Ice (Camino to Cop) is a 55-minute
film directed by Ben Wrigley following the story of climate activists who
walked across England and Scotland to attend the COP 26 summit in November
2021.
The COP 28 (Conference
of the Parties) summit will take place in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) between 30th November and 12th December. Convened
by the United Nations (UN) it brings governments who signed up to the original
UN climate agreement in 1992 together to discuss how to limit and prepare for
future climate change [2].
In a joint statement
issued in early November Chief COP 28 Negotiator and COP 28 President Designate
Dr Sultan Al Jaber said the summit must
‘accelerate practical action on mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage and
climate finance and build a fully inclusive COP28 that leaves no one behind’
[3].
Concerns have been
expressed about locating the summit in one of the world’s top 10 oil producing
nations and appointing as its president the chief executive of the UAE’s state-owned
oil company.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg,
speaking at a youth protest during the COP 26 summit in Glasgow in 2021 said
world leaders had held 26 summits, producing “decades of blah, blah, blah, and
where has that got us? [4]”
Of Walking on Thin
Ice suggests one way by
which individuals and communities can change that narrative.
More than a thousand
people shared part of the journey with the activists and the film, which has
been described as an ‘immersive and poetic’ experience, has been shown at
venues around the country [1].
On the evening there
will also be music, a clothes swap, and stalls from local environmental
organisations in the YMCA café, refreshments will be available provided by
Newcastle-under-Lyme Fairtrade group.
Local arts group B-Arts
will also be there offering people the opportunity to make their own pledge
cards based on environmentally friendly actions they plan to take in the year
ahead.
The Radical Art
Collective will also be holding a Greed Actually evening at The Block in
Longton in partnership with the North Staffs Climate Coalition on Thursday 14th
December.
They will be giving
people to make and send cards to the greediest CEO’ s to thank them for their
contribution to consumerism and climate change.
In September NASA’s
Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York published data showing that the
summer of 2023 was the hottest since records began in 1880. The months of June,
July, and August combined were warmer than any other recorded summer.
NASA administrator Bill
Nelson said the record temperatures would result in “dire real-world
consequences”, including increasingly extreme weather that would “threaten
lives and livelihoods around the world” [5].
The film show will take
place at Hanley YMCA, Harding Road, Hanley, ST1 3AE, on Tuesday 12th
December, doors open at 7pm with the screening starting at 8pm.
The Radical Art
Collective Greed Actually event will take place at The Block, Unit 6,
Longton Exchange, on 14th December between 7pm and 9pm.
[1] https://www.improntafilms.com/camino-to-cop26---of-walking-on-thin-ice.html
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67143989
[3] https://www.cop28.com/en/joint-statement
[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49918719
[5] https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3282/nasa-announces-summer-2023-hottest-on-record/
