Beijing 2022 Boycott
CAMPAIGN UPDATE! The Scottish Government confirmed on 3 December that they will not be sending any representatives to the Games. This was followed by news on 6 December of a full diplomatic boycott by the US and news of a UK diplomatic boycott on 8 December.
When China was awarded the summer Olympics in 2008 it promised the world improvements in human rights. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked us all to take that promise at face value and chose not to heed the concerns raised by Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, Southern Mongolians or Chinese human rights activists. Nor did they listen to NGOs, journalists, independent experts or civil society voices around the world.
The Tibetan uprising which took place in 2008 was brutally supressed and the human rights situation has only deteriorated since then. This has led to over 150 Tibetans carrying out self-immolation protests. It was against this backdrop that China was awarded yet another Games - this time the 2022 Winter Olympics. In recent years, growing concern about the human rights issues in Tibet has been bolstered by a new international awareness about the situation in East Turkestan and the treatment of Uyghurs. The security crackdown in Hong Kong raised forther concerns and the disappearance of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has now raised some fresh, and very specific, questions about women's rights and athlete safety. Many parliamentary groups have been calling for a boycott and a number of governments are said to be considering this course of action. Following a debate on 15 July 2021, MPs in Westminster voted in favour of a diplomatic and political boycott. The CPGT wholeheartedly supports that decision and calls on the UK government to respect the vote and confirm a full diplomatic boycott. For more information and to take your own action, please visit the #NoBeijing2022 campaign website. |
Tibet's Climate Crisis
The climate crisis in Tibet will directly impact approximately half the world’s population and the indirect effects will reach even further. This is a reality which the Chinese government has attempted to obscure, and which too many governments have been only too happy to ignore, for far too long. They can do so no longer.
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The Tibetan Plateau is a fragile and strategically critical ecosystem that is extremely sensitive to climate change. Changes in the Plateau ecosystem significantly impact regional and global weather patterns, river systems and biodiversity. It should, therefore, be a source of great international concern that Tibet is right on the frontline of the climate crisis. It is warming 2-4 times faster than the global average and current predictions report that over a third of the glaciers along the Hindu Kush and Himalayan range will be gone before the end of this century, even if we succeed in keeping global warming to 1.5 °C.
Most of Asia’s major rivers originate in Tibet and rely on meltwater from glaciars during the dry seasons. Some 1.4 billion people live within the watersheds of those rivers, depending upon them directly for freshwater supplies. Close to 4 billion people are fed by agriculture and industry dependent upon those supplies – approximately half the world’s present population. Despite all of this, Tibet had no formal representation at COP 26. Fortunately, the issue of Tibet's climate crisis was raised by an informal delegation of Tibet campaigners and advocates working in coalition. The group included a representative of Tibet Policy Institute, the research centre of the Tibetan government-in-exile. The Dalai Lama's Representative in the UK and Northern Europe was also present at the conference with a member of staff from the Office of Tibet in London. The latter two were able to meet briefly with CPGT member Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP in Edinburgh and to hold a longer session with CPGT members in Glasgow, including the Co-Chairs and the Secretary. As COP 26 concluded, the CPGT released a statement which reflected the briefing paper produced by the Tibetan advocacy delegation and also built on our own previous work on climate change. This can be viewed on our reports page. |