Modern industrial societies are having a catastrophic effect on the planet, accelerating contamination of the air, water, and soil, the destruction of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, mass extinction of species, and runaway climate change. A global economic systemfixated with exponential GDP growth at all costs is now not only damaging the natural systems on which we depend, but pushing them towards irreversible breakdown. For all this, our world remains split between obscene wealth and privilege at one end and extreme poverty and exploitation at the other.
Climate change impacts were widely felt in 2018 in the form of unprecedented extreme weather events – heat waves, droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc – on every continent. In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, humanity is facing nothing less than a “direct existential threat”, a scenario confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C‘ released in October 2018. Worryingly, many climate experts have criticized this already grim report for being too conservative and reticent on the actual riskswe face.
This alarming situation calls for much more than a change in individual lifestyles. It demands that the world’s governments, corporations and international bodies make climate action their absolute top priority with immediate effect. As an agency mandated with the responsibility of keeping the world a peaceful place for humanity, the United Nations is especially obliged to forestall an imminent and related danger; that of conflict erupting around the world on account of climate migration.
Therefore, we urge the United Nations to declare a Global Climate Emergency and to follow it up with an emergency action plan formulated in consultation with all stakeholders, especially those most vulnerable to climate impacts. Such a plan must necessarily pursue just, equitable and ecologically sound climate policies, and steer clear of false solutions. As a start, we demand that the United Nations – under whose auspices the COP process is currently being conducted in Katowice, Poland – pressurize nations to commit to far greater emissions reductions than is the case presently.
This is essential to bridge the gap between the extremely alarming scenario outlined by the UN’s own authoritative scientific research and the vastly inadequate and ineffective actions being presently taken in response to it. By doing so, the United Nations would only be doing the least that is rationally, ethically and politically expected of a body that is a collective of the earth’s nations and its peoples.
Drafted by Citizens’ Campaign on the Climate Crisis, India. We thank you for your support, and would like to request you to forward this petition to as many people as possible. You can write to us at: campaign.climatecrisis@gmail.com
Sign the petition https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/call-it-by-its-true-name-declare-global-climate/
Lots of empty words unless:
Negative external costs and positive incentives must be built into every investment decision. And these costs and incentives must be applied to every human economic activity from the mine to the chemistry lab to the assembly line to the opera house to the athletic field to the hospital. Economic outcomes with negative social and/or ecological value must be recognized.
Negative externalities need to be measured and priced in up front so as to discourage, temper, or at the extreme eliminate investment.
Every investment decision must be internally priced to reflect its socially constructive or destructive outcome. Croplands, grasslands, forests, fisheries, inorganic resources; all of the earth’s natural resources, must be internally priced so as to prevent their exploitation and damage to the planet.
None this is happening on a broad enough scale to make a difference.
http://www.InquiryAbraham.com
Pity this petition won’t make a damn bit of difference, but I signed it anyway.
Citizen’s initiative’s on the climate crisis are important and demonstrate global awareness on this issue is on the rise. However, I call your attention to three points
– these initiatives should strive to link/articulate with other similar projects/organizations around the world to enhance their impact: e.g. Extinction Rebellion, Climate Alarm, 350.org, etc.
– the climate crisis is deadly serious but is part of a broader environmental crisis that is equally dire and which includes biodiversity loss, ecosystem destruction, deforestation, etc. and is caused by the growth-dependent and consumerism-driven economic practices of many countries; if the dominant economic model is untouched nothing will change and the consequences will be catastrophic;
– calling upon the UN to devise a climate emergency action programme won’t do the trick; its practises are too bureaucratic and top-down – besides, the UN’s SDGs include ‘economic growth’ as one of its goals; citizens and civil society organizations must be involved in developing a strategy to save humanity and nature, otherwise corporate and financial interests will make sure business as usual will prevail.
To devise the social-economic transition we need there are already invaluable proposals such as those of the Degrowth, Transition, Buen Vivir, Ecofeminism and other similar movements. Many of them have been posted on Countercurrents.
A. Fonseca (Lisboa, Portugal)
There is a need for change. B ut I donot need the United Nations. I can do it myself. No car and no cocoacola. Make the change that you think you can make withouot without sending your power to whatever institute. When we do things for one other we do not have to pay taxes over that value. That is bringing down the government. And this governments of ours are no more able to solfe any problem. They are connected to parts of society thinking that this connection is the best. But it is the wrong one, are they able to change it in something more healthy?
So start yourself. Grow your own food. learn how to knit. Make your own bread. And do all this things with some other people. With less energy and more companionship
Love Léo