20140921_PC

Source: Various

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT12iL7ogsU

Date: 21/09/2014

Event: Speeches at the 2014 People's Climate March

Credit: BBC TV News

People:

• Emma Thompson: Hollywood actress and climate campaigner

[Emma Thompson, speaking at the People's Climate March in London. Many thanks to Fay Kelly-Tuncay for transcribing this.]

Emma Thompson: … climate change is the human rights issue of our time. No more are we the grunge hippies sitting in trees. We are the voice of the future, if there is to be a future.

The best words I’ve heard in today’s Observer Desmond Tutu - who rocks! may I say. He has done one of the best articles I’ve seen on this subject in decades. And this is what to read if you feel, as I do sometimes, overwhelmed. He says: "I fought apartheid, now climate change is our global enemy." And I am going to read to you what he said we should do, because that’s what everyone asks of me. And it is perhaps pretty much the most important answer you come up with.

He say: “We can boycott events, sports teams and media programming sponsored by fossil fuel companies.” [Crowd cheers.] Yeah! “We can demand that their advertisements carry health warnings. We can organise car free days and other platforms that can fill broader societal awareness. We can encourage energy companies to spend more of their resources on the development of sustainable energy. And we can reward those companies that demonstrably do so by using their products to the exclusion of others.” Very important. [More cheers.]

“Just as we argued in the 1980s, that those who conducted business with apartheid and Africa were aiding and abetting an immoral system - we can say that nobody can profit from rising temperatures, sea flooding, and human suffering. Poverty caused by the burning of fossil fuels.” [Emma stops reading from The Observer.]

So look around you? Shell. Shell’s HQ is right next to the London Eye. Tate Britain is sponsored by BP - these companies bury themselves into our culture - they must be challenged. If the future is not Green - there is no future! If the future is not you - there is no future! Thank you. [Crowd cheers.]