Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Congressman Earl Blumenauer have joined East Coasters Senator Chuck Schumer and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a bill to compel our new president to declare a national Climate Emergency Declaration (CED):
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2021/02/04/congressional-bill-urges-biden-declare-climate-emergency
Hundreds of organizations, led by Center for Biological Diversity, join in this demand, which echoes the First Demand of Extinction Rebellion: “Tell the truth about the climate and wider ecological emergency.” This federal CED would be added to the dozens of executive orders already signed by Biden to clean up the mess his planet-trashing predecessor made, including one “elevating climate change as a national security concern.”
For years, the Climate Mobilization has been advocating for the CED as a tool to force governments to actually treat the emergency of global warming and climate change as an emergency. Last June, XRPDX joined in with the rest of the climate justice community and many other organizations to push the City of Portland to pass a CED. Unanimously! Of course, we are working hard so that the Declaration leads to real policies and lowered greenhouse gas emissions, in a context of equity and justice.
If Biden does sign on to the CED, the United States will join 18 other nations, as well as the European Union, in recognizing the climate emergency, along with 1,870 subnational governments worldwide.