by Sara Forrest, Commission Member
In day 2 of this heat wave, I have been listening to fears that our electricity grid needs investment to help us to cope with the increasing incidence of heat waves in the UK. The extra electricity load for significant numbers air conditioning increases the risk of blackouts ( and electric car charging) as happened in France recently.
The CAFOD / Live Simply group in our parish promoted the new CAFOD petition lobbying the Prime Minister to use our hosting of the G20 next year to cancel some third world debt to enable poor countries to support their populations better and to pass a new UK law supporting Debt Justice.
We are privileged in that we have been a major world economy for hundreds of years and have built up more wealth than many of the nations who are suffering greater environmental changes due to climate change. Yet our Government is borrowing more money to ‘keep us in the manner we expect’. Smaller country economies must raise the capital to help their people from displacement and natural disasters. In addition to the humanitarian aid from organisations such as CAFOD, Medicines Sans Frontiers and DEC, plus many others. But with their credit rating are worse than ours so their costs of debt are higher than ours.
It has recently been reported that a certain President has increased his personal wealth in the last 12 months by $1 Billion. Looking at the alleged multi-million payments made to various politicians do we really believe that they are seeking to do anything other than protect their current source of wealth and wealth?
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer across the world. It is not right or just.
So, please visit CAFOD, sign the petition and maybe write to your MP to ask for their support in achieving debt justice across the world. And if you can donate to their Venezuela appeal.