The Future is Equal

Feel the Heat petition

Thank you for your support! ‘Feel the Heat’ was a campaign that Oxfam ran in the run up to the Copenhagen climate change meeting in December 2009. The petition is now closed, but we have retained the text of this page for archive purposes.

John Key must Feel the Heat

Climate change increases poverty and suffering for millions of the world’s poorest people as they face increasingly unpredictable weather, hunger, disease and displacement. This is a massive injustice because the poorest people are the least responsible for causing climate change and are the least able to cope.

In December 2009, world leaders met at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen to develop a global climate change agreement. These crucial talks may be over, but we’re not done yet. We need to urge our government (and all governments) to make fair and strong decisions in order to ensure that the needs of the world’s poorest people are being met.

By signing the Feel the Heat petition you are calling on New Zealand together with other developed countries to:

  • reduce emissions to at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.
  • work within the United Nations to ensure that the needs of the world’s poorest people are at the heart of a new global climate change deal.
  • cut our emissions first, fastest and furthest so that global emissions peak by 2015 and fall at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
  • provide the money and technology needed, independent of existing aid commitments, to help vulnerable people in poor countries adapt to changing climates.