In his letter, Naidoo recalls various incidents of extreme weather that have made international news headlines, including wildfires that raged through Russia and the ongoing deadly flooding in Pakistan. Noting the global dimension of climate change, the Greenpeace leader warned that no country could escape unscathed from the worldwide phenomenon’s dangers.
“Death, resource scarcity, increased food prices, unstable weather conditions, further global instability [resource wars] and international migrations [resulting from floods, drought and the like] will touch your country -- and all of us,” Naidoo’s letter read.
He went on to state that in the near future Turkey would be faced with difficulty arising from drought in major wheat-exporting nations -- also leading to a Russian export ban -- which has more than doubled global wheat prices since the beginning of the summer. Repercussions will be felt around the world, he said. “I understand that this might be a tough political line to promote, but Turkish people must be made aware of the need to act now to save themselves and others from the destruction they are currently seeing on the other side of the world, the side effects they are already experiencing and the further destruction which awaits them in the not too distant future should you, their elected leader, shirk your responsibility and refrain from taking urgent action,” Naidoo asserted.
The letter called on Erdoğan to raise Turkey’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, work for progress in international climate negotiations, stop the policy of subsidizing fossil fuels while neglecting renewable energy investments and to “take advantage of the mitigation and adaptation potential of ecological farming practices by increasing research and investment funding available for ecological farming methods.”
In his letter, Naidoo also dismissed the views of those who deflect blame for current conditions away from global warming and concluded: “I call on you now to prevent further destruction... we would like to know how you are planning to respond to this urgent crisis.”
