By Graham Keen
On 14th June the French speaking Belgian Grandparents for Climate (GPC) celebrated their 10th anniversary. The movement has currently some 400 paying members and 1,300 persons receive the newsletter.
After a regular Annual General Meeting, the morning session ended with a talk by Prof. Marius Gilbert. He is professor in epidemiology, vice-rector at the ULB, the Free University of Brussels, and adviser to the government. “In a world in crisis, how can we think about the transmission that is at the heart of our movement’s mission ? How can we think about the long-term ecological transition when short-term threats are multiplying?” He told us we must (re)find our confidence in the way we face crises and citizens must have a greater say in decisions that affect their lives. This requires actively promoting participatory democracy to foster broad citizen participation in political decision-making, going beyond just voting in elections. Asked about the mood of his students he said they are anxious about the future, and want to make the best of the present day in view of future uncertainty.
In the afternoon GPC celebrated their 10th anniversary with talks by several influential persons who have actively backed the GPC movement, some of them since the very first days ten years ago.
Jean-Pascal Van Ypersele is a well-known climatologist in Belgium, Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and former vice-president of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He encouraged his audience to raise awareness of the climate issues and heartily thanked GPC for its steadfast involvement in the climate movement over these 10 years.
Françoise Tulkens is a Belgian lawyer, Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, formerly at the European Court of Human Rights, and also a grandparent. She emphasized how climate is connected to social justice, human rights and the severe challenges faced by impoverished countries.
Adelaïde Charlier is a young climate activist who co-founded Youth for Climate, which organises the annual Climate March in Brussels in which GPC participates every year.
Thérèse Snoy, founder and former president of GPC, gave a slide show of GPC over its ten years, with a trumpet accompaniment by Dirk.
Roland de Wolf gave the audience a brief explanation of European Grandparents for Climate and its working groups, inviting participants to follow the upcoming Oslo conference via the EGC website and newsletter.
Bernard Hubeau, president of our Flemish colleagues Grootouders voor het Klimaat congratulated GPC for their active example and looked forward to further close collaboration in the coming years.
The current president of GPC is Baudouin Van Overstraeten. Together with Philippe Sonnet and Paul Duhoux, he managed the day’s proceedings. The other committee members are : Cécile de Ryckel, Paul Galand, Myriam Gérard, Alain Laigneaux, Godelieve Ugeux, Martine Van Dooren and Yves Claus.