Ben & Jerry’s lobbying to keep the climate cool

American ice cream makers Ben & Jerry’s reckon we’ll have climate change licked this year – if only we can convince our leaders to agree on a real plan in Paris.

Negotiators for the world’s leaders are meeting in December 2015 in the French capital – and many people believe the meeting is the planet’s last chance to avoid catastrophic heating of between 4 and 6.5 degrees, through an ambitious agreement from all countries to reduce emissions.

Accordingly, Ben & Jerry’s have launched a new flavour called Save Our Swirled, which encourages ice cream fans to sign a petition pressuring world leaders to do the right thing. “Our goal is for international leaders to work towards 100 per cent Clean Energy by 2050,” the Ben & Jerry’s website says.

The company has previously launched protest flavours, with a Baked Alaska product that raised awareness of plans to drill for oil in the Arctic. It’s an encouraging sign from an American company – and in contrast with the US Senate vote earlier this year admitting that climate change was real, but declaring it not the product of human activity.