NRDC Activist,

Like people everywhere, we at NRDC are appalled by Russia's horrific invasion of Ukraine. We stand with Ukrainians and all people working to safeguard peace.

This is a security emergency. It's a humanitarian emergency. It must be addressed with the greatest of urgency.

Unfortunately, the oil and gas industry is exploiting the tragedy to protect and grow their profits. They seek to ramp up oil and gas drilling on our public lands and off our shores. They want to lock Europe into more climate damaging gas consumption. They're pushing to fast-track pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. And they're working overtime to roll back commonsense actions to tackle our growing climate crisis and the safeguards we all depend on to protect the environment and public health.

That is exactly the wrong response. Russia is an autocratic petro state using oil and gas money to finance military aggression. It is weaponizing energy exports to hold Europe hostage to a price and supply crisis of Moscow's making.

It's one more reason to end our reliance on fossil fuels and speed the shift to cleaner, smarter energy sources that won't condemn us to endless cycles of suffering and war while driving us headlong toward climate catastrophe.

The Biden administration and Congress must not fall prey to the fossil fuel industry's cynical exploitation of this crisis.

So please send a message to President Biden, cabinet officials, and Congress demanding they block efforts to use war in Ukraine as a pretense to expand oil and gas drilling and derail action on clean energy and climate change.

This conflict is further proof that we need to swiftly move to a 100% clean energy economy and away from an unpredictable economy tied to fossil fuels.

Russia is one of the world's top oil and gas exporters, and its authoritarian government is using fossil fuels as a weapon. It's time to take that weapon away and protect our families and our economy by transitioning to clean energy.

Our rapidly worsening climate change crisis only underscores the urgency to act. As an alarming new report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted, climate change is causing grievous harm and growing costs to people and nature. Millions of people face acute food and water insecurity, and disease and death are rising. And those suffering most are in low-income communities — as many as 3.6 billion people — on the jagged frontlines of climate harm. It's time for urgent action.

President Biden has proposed a package of important strategic investments that will guide us to a clean energy future. And while this legislation passed the House, the same deep-pocketed corporate interests that are trying to exploit the crisis in Ukraine are trying to block this vital climate package in the Senate.

Without a rapid transition to clean energy, the U.S. economy, as well as families across the country, will continue to suffer under a volatile and dangerous fossil fuel economy.

So please join NRDC in calling the Biden administration and Congress to pursue true energy independence by urgently scaling up clean energy investments and shutting down cynical efforts to use this crisis to expand climate-busting fossil fuel development.

Oil industry attempts to lock future generations into decades of more dependence on fossil fuels will do nothing to help the people of Ukraine today. But it would help to doom all of us to the worst consequences of climate change tomorrow. We can, and must, do better.

Our hearts and thoughts are with the people of Ukraine. We hope for their safety, their continued freedom, and an end to Russia's aggression, violence, and destruction.

Sincerely,/>
Manish Bapna
President and CEO, NRDC