Dear President Bush
 
As you meet today for the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change, we write to urge you to send a clear message that negotiations on a post-2012 global deal must be launched at the UN Climate Change Summit in December.
 
We are UK-based development and environment NGOs working in the developing world with communities and habitats already facing devastating impacts of climate change. The latest scientific evidence highlights that these impacts are going to get much worse. It could not be clearer that a more ambitious global response is urgently needed that cuts greenhouse gas emissions drastically to keep warming below 2 degrees C, and helps poor people adapt.
 
It is vital that the Washington meeting does not act as a diversion from the ongoing UN climate change talks where the voices of developing countries and vulnerable communities can be heard. Instead it must urge negotiators to ramp up efforts towards a speedy agreement, by 2009, on a binding regime for post-2012 measures.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Matthew Frost, Chief Executive, Tearfund
Barbara Stocking, Director, Oxfam GB
Ian Leggett, Director, People & Planet
Benedict Southworth, Director, World Development Movement
John Sauven, Executive Director, Greenpeace UK
Daleep Mukarji, Director, Christian Aid
Tony Juniper, Executive Director, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales & Northern Ireland)
David Nussbaum, Chief Executive, WWF UK
Simon Trace, Chief Executive, Practical Action