8:00am Tuesday 22nd December 2009
By Martin Lea
DORSET may be hundreds of miles from Denmark but campaigners hope they were able to send a message to decision-makers at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
A vigil in Weymouth town centre was one of many held round the world to demonstrate to leaders attending the conference that people want a real climate deal.
Weymouth and Portland Transition Town (TT) group organised the event in the town and it was attended by about 30 people which included local politicians and members of Greenpeace.
They held up banners which said ‘Climate Change – Fair, Ambitious Binding Treaty’ and ‘Climate Change – The World Needs a Real Deal’.
The global vigil was promoted by the internet campaigning group Avaaz.org which said that 3,000 events took place in more than 130 different countries.
The two-week UN conference in the Danish capital aimed to thrash out a global deal on climate change although many were disappointed by the outcomes.
Weymouth and Portland TT secretary David Smith said: “We had a successful event in Weymouth and we can only hope that people were listening to us.
“We read out the declaration before marching through the town centre.”
The declaration which was read out says that the fragile balance of the Earth is changing and global warming could be beyond our control in five years.
It says the decisions we make today will decide the future of humanity and we should stop burning oil, coal and wood and shift to the natural energy of the sun, wind and water.
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