Last night, Berkeley declared a climate emergency and committed to a just emergency climate mobilization to end greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible! The city’s Climate Emergency Declaration calls for the creation of a nine-county Bay Area Regional Just Transition and Climate Emergency Mobilization Collaborative. You can read the full text of the final Climate Emergency Resolution here.
This historic commitment from Berkeley follows declarations of climate emergency and commitments to emergency-speed decarbonization from Hoboken, New Jersey (11/2017) and Montgomery County, Maryland (12/17). Further, in April, Los Angeles voted to study the creation of America’s first Climate Emergency Mobilization Department. All of these commitments have come after intense work from The Climate Mobilization organizers on the ground.
These cities and counties will help us build the climate emergency movement by throwing their considerable weight – legal, financial, cultural, and political – into launching the massive mobilization we need at all levels of government to restore a safe climate.
But government officials can’t lead this reinvention of government and society for the era of ecological crisis without us. They will need a decisive popular mandate to take the unprecedented, drastic action needed to truly protect humanity.
Politicians love precedent. If we can generate a wave of climate emergency declarations and commitments at local governments across the country, it will open up huge possibilities in California and beyond.
Are you in? Get started today using our new climate emergency organizer toolkit, which has dozens of strategies that you can use to a launch climate mobilization effort in your town, city, or county. If you’re in California, let us know you’re interested in getting involved!
Last night, Berkeley, CA declared a climate emergency — committing to not only net zero carbon emissions by 2030, but a *net drawdown*.
This sets the new standard for what those of us with means should be striving for at this critical moment in Earth history. https://t.co/BfXuV6Jecx
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) June 13, 2018