Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.66.5
Object Name
leaflet
Title
'Bank of England. I promise to pay the bearer on demand the cost of the United Kingdom's excessive emissions. Billions of pounds climate debt at Copenhagen. From the corporations and people of the United Kingdom'
Place
Copenhagen, UK
People
Gordon Brown, Labour Party, G7, World Development Movement (WDM)/Global Justice Now
Events
G7 Conference 2009
Description
When folded the leaflet is designed to look like a £10 note with then-prime minister Gordon Brown's face on it. When unfolded, the reverse of the leaflet looks like a fixed penalty notice.
Instead of the usual wording on a £10 note, this mock-up, created in 2009 by the World Development Movement (WDM) has messaging demanding that the UK pay billions of pounds to poor countries which are disproportionately impacted by climate change. They argue that the UK as an industrialised country reaps financial benefits while pushing the world towards climate collapse. Industrialised countries at the time were estimated to be responsible for seventy percent of all carbon emissions, while poor countries who were less responsible were already experiencing the brunt of climate change and did not have the resources to combat it. The leaflet was prepared ahead of the G7 conference and was designed to be signed and returned, so that the WDM could deliver them en masse as a protest. It also contained an additional note to be signed and sent to one of the G77 developing country ambassadors encouraging them to push for climate reparation payments.
The World Development Movement, now known as Global Justice Now, is a UK campaign group which produces research on global justice and how corporate power supported by global north governments like the UK negatively impacts those living in poverty in the global south.
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