March on climate in Brussels: "The house burns and we look elsewhere"

Planet

While thousands of citizens are expected in the streets of Brussels Sunday for the march for climate, the initiators of a petition for the establishment of a state of environmental emergency call Tuesday the country to mobilize for the elections next May.

Bearers of a petition already signed by more than 25,000 people, they urge civil society to mobilize to establish a minimum demands book to be given to future political representatives.

"Faced with the enormity of the emergency, neither the governments nor the citizens of Belgium are currently mobilized at the height of the issues.The house burns and we look elsewhere," say the two protagonists, Paul Blume and Cédric Chevalier. If initiatives exist, "the change is too slow, too weak to influence the overall trajectory of Belgium".

In order to cope with this societal transition in a fair and equitable way, according to them, it is necessary to provide the country with an "institutional device capable of responding to the emergency situation while preserving democracy".

It's not too late, they point out. But current policies are insufficient. "We have until 2020 to cap and then reduce the greenhouse gas emissions curve, then we will have to almost double our planned efforts by 2030 and achieve zero net emissions by 2050."

Faced with the prevailing inertia, the two initiators of the petition today call "citizen initiatives, badociations, unions, employers, youth organizations, student and professional federations, compulsory and higher education, administrations and officials, artists and intellectuals "to coalesce now under a common banner and to bring a minimum common demands book for the elections of May 2019.

"Without a huge citizen pressure on politics, there will be no societal transition," they conclude.

The Climate Coalition, which according to the two men could be the nucleus of this grand coalition, is organizing a climate march in Brussels on Sunday, on the sidelines of the opening of COP 24 in Poland. "Claim the climate" will leave the Gare du Nord at noon to reach the Parc du Cinquantenaire around 16h00-17h00. The Stib network will be free.