PRESS RELEASE : Greens call for prosecution of those most responsible for climate breakdown [October 2022]

The press release issued by the Green Party on 2 October 2022.

• Call for a legal process to prosecute those most responsible for the UK having failed to protect people and habitats from climate breakdown
• Liz Truss instructing King Charles not to attend COP27 “a shameful end to the UK’s tenure as COP president” – Carla Denyer

Green Party co-leader, Carla Denyer, has said Liz Truss instructing King Charles not to attend the COP27 climate negotiations in Egypt in November is ‘shameful’. The news comes as Green Party conference agreed a motion calling for the establishment of a legal process to prosecute those most responsible for the UK having failed to protect people and habitats from climate breakdown.

Denyer said:

“News that Liz Truss has instructed King Charles not to attend COP27 in November is a shameful end to the UK’s tenure as COP president. It is a sign of what many feared –  we have a prime minister willing to dilute UK action on the most important global crisis we face, just at a time we need to step up our game.

“But more crucially, under the UK’s presidency, the COP process has failed to set the world on a path to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees. Today our conference agreed on the need for a legal process to prosecute those most responsible for the UK having failed to protect people and habitats from climate breakdown.”

The motion, passed on the final day of Green Party conference in Harrogate, also called on the Government, as outgoing president of the COP process, to make sure that COP27 takes place in a more transparent and inclusive way and that lower and middle-income countries are listened to in the negotiation and treated as equals.

Denyer continued:

“We need a process which delivers a robust science-based review of every country’s progress towards delivering on their agreed emissions targets and to be held accountable for their shortfalls, and for the losses and damage caused by their emissions.”