Climate emergency declaration
[10] A United Nations Development Programme survey of public opinion in 50 countries found that sixty-four percent of 1.2 million respondents believe climate change is a global emergency.
On 4 December 2018, the Club of Rome presented their "Climate Emergency Plan", which included 10 high-priority measures to limit global warming.
[16] 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.
"[29] 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.
[32] Blumenauer's proposed legislation is supported by 2020 US presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders, as well as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
[32] 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.
[33] In September 2019, the Australian Medical Association officially declared climate change a public health emergency.
[34] 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; [and] a higher incidence of mental-ill health.
"[34] 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.
Greens MP for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, welcomed the UK Parliament's declaration of a climate emergency and argued that Australia should follow their lead.
[36] 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.
[41] The motion was supported by independent members Zali Steggall, Helen Haines and Andrew Wilkie, as well as Centre Alliance.
As of December 2020, five years after the Paris Agreement, at least 15 countries have already declared a state of climate emergency, including Japan and New Zealand.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres has urged all other countries to declare climate emergencies until carbon neutrality is reached.
[79][80] The EU represented at that date 28 member states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Michael Gove, responding for the UK Government, said that "the situation we face is an emergency" and called for cross-party action; but didn't endorse the motion.
