Climate Emergency

  • 4CL and DrawdownBayArea, offer this policy template for your city’s consideration.

PDF format
 MS Word format

  • The Climate Emergency Task Force also provides a template as a model for other cities to consider:

https://www.cemtf.org/resource/template-climate-emergency-declaration-resolution



Climate Emergency Resolutions are sweeping the planet. Local Governments of all sizes demand we know the truth about the climate emergency and take commensurate action. Check out this Climate Emergency Map.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/embed?mid=12XomdI_Muh3WZlk0zp_22o6_-ThMpfNb&ll=37.94767090375981%2C-122.15960773085936&z=10

Why is a climate emergency mobilization program necessary? Isn’t it enough to say “we’re still in” the Paris Agreement?

The world is already seeing the deadly effects of climate change at just over 1°C of warming: stronger and more frequent wildfires, hurricanes, and storms; tropical viruses moving out of the tropics, including pandemics like Zika; unprecedented heat waves, droughts, water shortages, and famine; and a resultant cycle of civil unrest, refugee and humanitarian crises, and state failure.

A recent study conducted by a team of the world’s top climate scientists, “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,” confirms that even the Paris Agreement’s “preferred” level of average global warming (1.5°C above pre-industrial levels), which by some projections could come within a decade, could potentially trigger a cascade of tipping points that sends the Earth into a “hothouse” state that causes the collapse of civilization and leaves most of the planet uninhabitable.

Although more conservative reports project Earth will hit 1.5°C of warming at some later date, a responsible risk-management approach to providing maximum protection for our constituents and humanity at large — as well as an unflinching look at the destruction already wrought by the current level of warming — demands much more than the incremental reform the Paris Agreement contemplates. It demands instead an emergency mobilization effort on a scale not seen since WWII to restore safe, pre-industrial climate conditions.

Find out more with this FAQ.

Background Information: UN and CA Statements Related to the Climate Emergency