TV Star Helen Baxendale joins Scottish climate campaigners in human flood

Star of hit TV sitcom Friends, Helen Baxendale, has joined Scottish climate campaigners on an overland journey to Copenhagen.

The actress has joined over 200 climate campaigners, including 30 from Scotland, who are travelling to Copenhagen to participate in a Friends of the Earth International Flood for Climate Justice taking place tomorrow (Saturday 12 December). The campaigners will join thousands of others from around the world to demand climate justice and stop carbon offsetting.

Meeting the campaigners, Helen Baxendale said:

“It was 5.30 in the morning when I met the Scottish group and I look forward to getting to know them better. Im heading to Copenhagen as a concerned member of the human race. For my part, Ive got a film company that made a film recently called Beyond the Pole – a comedy with green issues at its heart. Its about two men who walk to the North Pole to raise awareness of environmental issues.

“I’m joining all the other Friends of the Earth activists to try and encourage our political leaders to act for a fair and strong agreement. Ive been interested in environmental issues for quite a while and have been on various marches. I thought it would be very exciting and really different as well as a once in a lifetime experience, to join the Flood.”

The spectacular, blue-coloured crowd will flood through the streets of Copenhagen tomorrow with a clear message to decision makers that offsetting carbon emissions the practice whereby rich industrialised countries pay developing countries to cut emissions rather than making cuts at home is unfair, and will not lead to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The Flood for Climate Justice is happening half way through the Copenhagen climate conference. Already the climate talks have been threatened by attempts by the Danish government to make secret back room deals that favour rich countries. It has also emerged that Canada is attempting to water down the outcome by arguing that the base year for future cuts in emissions should be changed from 1990 to 2006, ignoring 15 years of pollution, during which Canada’s emissions have doubled.

Duncan McLaren, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland said:

“I am proud of Friends of the Earth Scotland staff and activists for making this long journey overland to Copenhagen. Friends of the Earth International has an outstanding track record of organising major demonstrations that can influence the trajectory of climate talks. We did it in the Hague, we did it in Bonn, and tomorrow the human flood will be trying to do the same in Copenhagen.”

For further information and to arrange interviews with Friends of the Earth Scotland from Copenhagen please contact:

Davina Shiell, Press Office, Friends of the Earth Scotland

T: 0131 243 2719

To be re-directed to a mobile call 0131 243 2715

Notes to editors

1. Photos available from http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/images/copenhagen_baxendale/

2. The event will end at 11:30am in front of the Danish Parliament, with a symbolic flooding of a giant trading floor specially constructed in the square. Actors will be playing carbon offsetters and government leaders, recreating the offsetting of emissions.

3. The action will send a clear message to governments that offsetting carbon emissions, by paying other countries to cut emissions rather than taking action at home, is unfair and will not bring about the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions we desperately need. Rich industrialised countries have historically emitted the most greenhouse gases, and they must agree to urgent and dramatic cuts in their emissions starting now.

4. Friends of the Earth Scotland is the country’s leading independent environmental campaigning organisation, and is the only organisation in Scotland that is working for environmental justice, campaigning for the planet and its people. www.foe-scotland.org.uk