Avaaz, APEC, Bondi and the Barrier Reef!

Are you on the Avaaz.org email list? Avaaz, meaning ‘Voice’ or ‘Song’ in several languages, is a ‘global community’ of people who take action on major issues facing the world today. They would like the views and values of the world’s people – not just political elites and ‘unaccountable corporations’ – to shape global decisions.

FYI this is what they want to communicate to global citizens about the coming APEC weekend in Sydney:

“This weekend, leaders of 21 nations–including the USA, China and Japan–are meeting at the APEC summit in Sydney, Australia. The summit has become the epicentre of a vital debate: whether to set binding global targets to avert catastrophic climate change, or to retreat to voluntary ‘aspirational goals’ amounting to nothing more than hot air.

We’ve teamed up with Australian allies GetUp to create spectacles in Sydney, the climate-endangered Great Barrier Reef and around the world—heading off an ‘Axis of Global Warming’ through a media firestorm, and sending our petition to key leaders. Can you help us break the half-million barrier this weekend?…You can help by forwarding this email to five more friends to ask them to add their voices:

Over 400,000 people have already signed, and this weekend we’re launching a massive 144-square metre floating canvas ‘target’ at Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach where it will be taken out to sea by surfers. Next stop, swimmers will float this banner over the Great Barrier Reef – which current predictions suggest will be killed off by climate change before 2030. Thousands of people from every continent have joined in by uploading climate target pictures of their own.

George Bush of the US and Australia’s John Howard are seeking to derail our efforts for a new global climate deal, and to convert the waverers. But both are lagging behind their publics, with elections expected soon. We need to reinforce the efforts of leaders like New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark, whose chief of staff has confirmed to Avaaz she will be working for binding targets at APEC. Let’s win over the undecided countries, and add hundreds of thousands more voices round the world: only binding targets can prevent a climate disaster.

The APEC summit isn’t just a talk-shop. It’s the kick-off to a string of top-level meetings in the coming months, all leading up to a landmark conference in Bali, Indonesia which will begin to write the next Kyoto Protocol. What happens in Australia could set the direction, for good or bad. But thanks to the worldwide movement that has been growing all year – from the G8 to Live Earth–we now have a real chance to shape the outcome.

Scientists agree, now is humanity’s window of opportunity to stop a climate catastrophe. The world can’t afford to miss this chance – so please, spread the word today.”

Over to you…