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Green MEP turns up the heat at climate change conference

Green MEP (and parliamentary candidate for Brighton and Hove) Caroline Lucas has made an excellent appearance on a panel evening run by the World Development Foundation, calling on world leaders to leave behind destructive free market economics and move towards a greener approach to global trade.

Speaking from the first in a series of "Turning Up The Heat" conferences, she was joined by Stewart Wallis of the New Economics Foundation.

Watch or listen to the conference (after the rather long pre-amble)

Elizabeth May says Global Green Conference was a success

Canada's Green Party leader Elizabeth May says the recent Global Greens conference in Brazil was a resounding success, and they named their Honorary President as Ingrid Betancourt, the founder of the Green Party Oxigeno de Columbia, who was kidnapped in 2002 and is yet to be freed.

Members from more than 87 nations (including Green MPs and MEPs) put issues like climate change, nuclear power and global food shortages at the top of the agenda, and the acceptance of a Tobin Tax to confront destabilising currency speculation.

The conference also heard from Denis Baupin (the Green vice-mayor of Paris), who is implementing similar eco-friendly lighting sytems adopted by Ross Mikramiri (the USA's highest ranking Green official in San Francisco - he was also the first to ban plastic bags in a major city), and from other groups like the African Greens and the Global Young Greens.

Elizabeth May concluded," It was the real "United Nations" of The Green Party. There was a strong sense that we are the hope of the world and that only non-violence and a positive vision can give our children a livable and secure world".

Canada Green Party Leader to speak in Brazil

Canada's Green Party leader Elizabeth May is delivering a keynote speech at this week's Global Green Congress, held in Sao Paulo in Brazil. She will be accompanied by 8 other Green Party delegates, along with other Green Party politicians and delegates from over 80 countries around the world.

To be launched by the President, Brazil (where Greens hold seats in the Parliament and Senate), the conference will concentrate on tackling climate change and biodiversity, and Elizabeth is first to speak.

She says, "I'm incredibly honoured to be asked to speak on the climate crisis before hundreds of Greens from around the world...The Green Party of Canada is unique in this country in that we are able to draw strength from a planetary network of Greens and we work together to arrest the climate crisis, restore the integrity of ecosystems and promote non-violence, diversity, social justice and grassroots democracy. The climate crisis is a global problem and requires a global solution.. Green Parties were among the first to sound the alarms on our rapidly changing climate and we have the most effective and pragmatic climate policies".