My friend Bill McKibben has warned for years that, absent dramatic action on global warming, we will literally have to lower the flags of several nations at the U.N. building in New York. Sea-level rise will wipe out entire countries like the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Tuvalu in the Pacific. Their national flags will have to be lowered in New York and put away, the nations gone forever. Imagine that.
But last week in Paris, during the international climate talks, negotiators heard the pleas of desperate and courageous island nation activists – and activists like you from all over the globe.
Those negotiators hammered out a Paris Agreement that commits the world to steady reductions in carbon emissions in a way that can keep temperatures “well below” two degrees Celsius.
Scientists say this gives not only the Maldives a chance at survival but also our equally vulnerable U.S. communities closer to home – like the low-lying Eastern Shore of Maryland and coastal Virginia cities like Norfolk.
Now you can help implement the Paris Accord with a year-end gift to CCAN. During this holiday season, donate to CCAN with the knowledge that global accords require local action to succeed.
People across the globe are counting on the United States to do its part to dramatically cut global warming pollution. But with Congress in gridlock, the whole world is literally counting on American states – not just California and New York but all states, like clean-energy leaders Maryland and DC, and climate-vulnerable Virginia – to do much, much more in the next five years.
Imagine that! Our Mid-Atlantic region is key to a global solution. That’s no exaggeration. Which means we need to pass legislation in Maryland in 2016 to increase our clean electricity standard to 25%. We need pass a best-in-the-nation carbon tax in the District of Columbia. We need to fight like hell to pass the bipartisan Virginia Coastal Protection Act in Richmond in 2016.
And we need to go on overdrive to stop new fossil fuel projects that will undermine global progress – like Dominion’s monstrous Atlantic Coast Pipeline for fracked gas.
Make a year-end, tax-deductible gift to CCAN to support the local organizing it will take to make the Paris Accord a success.
We cannot win globally without wins here at home. And CCAN is a truly people-powered group: volunteers and donors like you have been the force behind 13 years of victories – from putting mandatory clean electricity standards in place to shutting down coal plants to passing laws to keep fracked gas in the ground.
With your help, I do not believe we will ever lower any nation’s flag at the United Nations building in New York. And we will not abandon coastal Virginia and Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
I’m totally inspired by the new Paris agreement, and I’m eager to do the hard, determined work it’ll take to turn a new global pact into rapid local progress in 2016.
After you’ve made a donation, check out this essay about the Paris agreement from blogger extraordinaire Joe Romm. You’ll be inspired. But you’ll also see how much work is ahead of us here in America over the next five years. And check out these wonderful photos of Paris activism from our friends at InsideClimate News.