Climate emergency declaration


A climate emergency declaration or declaring a climate emergency is an action taken by governments and scientists to acknowledge humanity is in a climate emergency. The first such declaration was made in December 2016. Since then over 1,400 local governments in 28 countries have made climate emergency declarations.
Once a government makes a declaration the next step for the declaring government to set priorities to mitigate climate change, prior to ultimately entering a state of emergency or equivalent.
In declaring a climate emergency, a government admits that global warming exists and that the measures taken up to this point are not enough to limit the changes brought by it. The decision stresses the need for the government and administration to devise measures that try and stop human-caused global warming.
The declarations can be made on different levels, for example at a national or local government level, and they can differ in depth and detail in their guidelines. The term climate emergency does not only describe formal decisions, but also includes actions to avert climate breakdown. This is supposed to justify and focus them. The specific term "emergency" is used to assign priority to the topic, and to generate a mindset of urgency.
The term “climate emergency” has been promoted by climate activists and pro-climate action politicians to add a sense of urgency for responding to a long-term problem.

Term

Climate emergency as a term was used in protests against climate change before 2010. In 2017 the city council of Darebin adopted multiple measures named "Darebin Climate Emergency Plan". On December 4th, 2018, the Club of Rome presented their "Climate Emergency Plan", which included 10 high-priority measures to limit global warming. With the rise of movements like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future the concern has been picked up by various governments.
Multiple European cities and communities who declared a climate emergency are simultaneously members of the Klima-Bündnis, which obligates them to lower their CO2 emissions by 10% every five years.
Oxford Dictionary chose climate emergency as the word of the year 2019 and defines the term as "a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it." Usage of the term soared more than 10,000% between September 2018 and September 2019.

History

Early stages

Encouraged by the campaigners behind a Climate Emergency Declaration petition, which had been launched in Australia in May 2016, the first governmental declaration of a climate emergency in the world was put forward by Trent McCarthy, an Australian Greens Councillor at the City of Darebin in Melbourne, Australia. The city declared a climate emergency on 5 December 2016. In August 2017, Darebin decided upon a catalogue of actions in a "Darebin Climate Emergency Plan". Darebin's declaration was followed by Hoboken in New Jersey and Berkeley, California.
Hearing of these developments in 2018, UK Green Party politician Carla Denyer, then a member of Bristol City Council, took the lead role in bringing about Bristol City Council's declaration of a climate emergency. This was the first such declaration by in Europe, and has been widely credited as a breakthrough moment for cities and national parliaments beginning to declare climate emergency. Denyer's motion was described in the UK newspaper The Independent as 'the historic first motion' which by July 2019 had been 'copied by more than 400 local authorities and parliaments'.
" protests on 22 March 2019 in Melbourne, Australia
, Switzerland on 24 May 2019
On 28th April 2019, the Scottish Parliament declared a climate emergency, making Scotland the first country to do so. This was quickly followed by the National Assembly for Wales on the 29th April and then the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the UK as whole in 1st May.

Subsequent developments

declared a climate emergency in June 2019. The Pope also called for a "radical energy transition" away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources, and urged leaders to "hear the increasingly desperate cries of the earth and its poor." He also argued against "the continued search for new fossil fuel reserves" and stated that "fossil fuels should remain underground."
On 10 July 2019, networks representing more than 7,000 higher and further education institutions from six continents announced that they are declaring a Climate Emergency, and agreed to undertake a three-point plan to address the crisis through their work with students. Some statements were criticized for not including specific measures.
In June 2019, Councillor Trent McCarthy of the City of Darebin brought together councillors and parliamentarians in Australia and around the world for two to connect the work of climate emergency-declared councils and governments. Following these link-ups and , McCarthy announced the formation of , a new network of Australian governments and councils advocating for a climate emergency response.
Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon believes the US government should declare a climate emergency. Blumenauer's proposed legislation is supported by 2020 US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, as well as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In 2019, according to an eight-country poll, a majority of the public recognise the climate crisis as an “emergency” and say politicians are failing to tackle the problem, backing the interests of big oil over the wellbeing of ordinary people. The survey found that climate breakdown is viewed as the most important issue facing the world in seven out of the eight countries surveyed.
In September 2013, the Australian Medical Association officially declared climate change a public health emergency. The AMA noted that climate change will cause "higher mortality and morbidity from heat stress; injury and mortality from increasingly severe weather events; increases in the transmission of vector-borne diseases; food insecurity resulting from declines in agricultural outputs; a higher incidence of mental-ill health." The AMA has called on the Australian Government to adopt a carbon budget; reduce emissions; and transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, among other proposals to mitigate the health impacts of climate change.
The Australian Greens Party is calling on the federal Parliament to declare a climate emergency. Greens MP for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, welcomed the UK Parliament's declaration of a climate emergency and argued that Australia should follow their lead. In October 2019, an official e-petition to the Australian Parliament calling for the declaration of a climate emergency, received more than 400,000 signatories and that the world's people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society.
In November 2019 the Oxford Dictionaries made the term climate emergency Word of the Year.
On 14-15 February 2020 the first National Climate Emergency Summit was held at the city hall in Melbourne, Australia. It was a sold out event with 2,000 attendees and 100 speakers.

Recent development

Development in the EU

On 28 November 2019, the European Parliament declared a climate emergency. The EU represents 27 member states.

Germany

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia started a campaign on 10 March 2019 called "NRW erklärt den Klimanotstand", where they urged local communities to do so. The first community to declare a climate emergency was Konstanz in Baden-Wurttemberg, on 2 May 2019.
The government of NRW called the declaration of a climate emergency a "symbolic measure", which does not give any "special rights" to the declaring community.

List of countries and dependencies

Parliamentary or Government declaration


States and local administrations