On 21st June governments and civil society representatives from across the globe assemble in Vienna for the first meeting of State Parties of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The event will see the gathering of State representatives (Ministers and Diplomats) alongside city …
“We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
On Monday, Russia, United States, China, UK and France came together to state that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The ‘Reagan Gorbachev principle’, as it has become known, may seem to be a fairly obvious truth. But this is the first time that these five nuclear weapons …
COP26 – what was achieved?
COP26 was the most significant climate summit since Paris in 2015. The measures outlined in the COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact are critical if we are to set a course to keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees. Members of churches, in the UK and further afield, have been campaigning in advance of …
What can we expect from COP26 in Glasgow?
Make no mistake - COP26 matters a lot. As the UN Secretary General has said “The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating …
The UK’s arms sales to human rights abusers
The Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair is taking place in London this week. The 2021 DSEI event demonstrates the need for a complete reassessment and overhaul of the UK government’s support for the UK arms industry, similar to that of 2007/2008 when the Defence Export …
Afghanistan – what will the future hold?
It seems that the long-running 20 year military campaign in Afghanistan has come to an abrupt end, creating huge apprehension for what might come next. Those in Afghanistan who have been active in supporting the US/UK backed governments of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani fear for the future of the …
Help forced labour go out of fashion
Shopping can be something of a minefield these days. On a rather infrequent clothes-shopping trip, I found myself unsure whether the pair of cotton trousers made in China had been manufactured using forced labour of Uyghurs. There is no easy way to tell. The Better Cotton Initiative does not give …
Keep KitKat Fairtrade
Nestlé has announced that from October 2020 KitKats will no longer contain Fairtrade cocoa and sugar. Instead, Nestlé is moving to the promotion of its own Cocoa Plan and the Rainforest Alliance certification. As a result 27,000 sugar and cocoa farmers will lose the Fairtrade Premium annually, to …
“Put armed conflict on lockdown” – #GlobalCeasefire
At the beginning of April 2020, JPIT’s four partner Churches joined the UN Secretary General’s call for a global ceasefire in order that Governments can respond to the common threat of Coronavirus. “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war” Antonio Guterres said when announcing the …
Postponement of the Glasgow Climate Summit
We understand the need to postpone the Glasgow COP26 Climate Summit to 2021. It is right that, at this time, governments around the world concentrate on tackling COVID-19. COVID-19 is a huge global emergency, and rightly requires a global response. But the emergency of the climate crisis …