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It’s been five years since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed, defining the entirely voluntary, unenforceable plan to avert global climate chaos. “We are still not going in the right direction,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said this week, addressing a forum marking the anniversary, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Paris promised to limit temperature rise to as close as to 1.5 degrees [Celsius] as possible,” he continued, “but the commitments made in Paris were far from enough to get there, and even those commitments are not being met…I call on all leaders worldwide to declare a state of climate emergency.”
World leaders, though, are primarily focused on a different state of emergency. With over 1.6 million people worldwide dead from COVID-19 and over 74 million cases reported, the suffering and economic devastation that the pandemic has caused, disproportionately to poor people and people of color, is inestimable. With President Donald Trump still at the helm, largely ignoring the crisis, the United States is faring worse than any other nation, with more than 300,000 deaths so far. Daily deaths are now topping 3,600, shattering global records. The CDC is projecting 83,000 Americans will die of COVID-19 in the next 3 weeks.
Both catastrophes of the pandemic and the climate need to be dealt with immediately. A coalition of over 380 groups under the banner “Build Back Fossil Free” is demanding urgent, action from...Read More→
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