A GLOBAL summit calling for action on climate change was launched in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, last week, led by the Governor of California, Jerry Brown, who branded President Trump a “liar, criminal, fool” on climate issues.
The summit brought together climate activists and thousands of leaders from regional governments, cities, and businesses, and resulted in new commitments to tackle the continuing threat of climate change. Governor Brown pledged that his state would aim for 100-per-cent clean energy by 2045.
California has just emerged from one of its worst droughts on record, which lasted from 2011 to 2017.
Thousands of businesses, towns, and cities in the United States have now signed a pledge to continue to work towards the former President Obama’s Paris commitment to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025; a commitment from which President Trump has now withdrawn.
The Episcopal Church in the United States is involved with the “We Are Still In” movement. A resolution was passed at its General Convention in the summer to “set an example, in the spirit of the Paris Climate Accord, by making intentional decisions about living lightly and gently on God’s good earth: for example, through energy conservation, renewable energy, sustainable food-practices, and gardening”.
The UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for climate action and former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, told delegates at the global summit: “To prevent the worst impacts of climate change, we have to cut greenhouse-gas emissions even as the population grows. Climate change is a global challenge, and Washington ought to be leading from the front.”
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the summit, however, to protest to the Californian governor about “his failure to rein in the state’s oil extraction”. They said that he had abandoned some neighbourhoods in the state to pollution from oil and gas-drilling operations.
Protesters also stormed the stage as Mr Bloomberg delivered his speech, leading him to remark that “only in America could you have environmentalists protesting an environmental conference”.