Global warming, due significantly to human emissions of greenhouse gases, is fast approaching 1.5oC above preindustrial levels––the likely threshold of serious or irreversible impacts on the world’s life support systems, according to a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is prominently informed by geographers’ research.
To help tackle this global crisis, the American Association of Geographers (AAG) has suggested five initiatives that urge the U.S. President and Congress to:
- Declare a “National Climate Emergency” in line with the latest IPCC and U.S. National Climate Assessment Reports;
- Accelerate the transition of the U.S. economy to embrace energy conservation and substitution of sustainable energy sources in place of fossil fuels, including encouraging innovation by states and local governments and the private sector to conserve energy (e.g., through “LEED” green building codes18, tree planting, watershed management, bikeways, and other means);
- Rapidly reduce carbon emissions through incentives, taxes, regulations, public transit, education, and other means;
- Encourage new approaches to food governance that expand climate-friendly agricultural practices and dietary choices;
- Strengthen U.S. and international capacity to adapt to the actual and future impacts of climate change, to reduce vulnerability and risks to human health, food security, water supply and ecosystems, making communities more resilient, and to restore critical infrastructure; 6. Elevate and effectuate U.S. carbon reduction goals to achieve zero emissions by 2050, in line with achieving the target of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5oC over pre-industrial levels.
The full report can be found here: http://www.aag.org/galleries/govt-relations/AAG_Climate_Statement_April_22_2021.pdf
The Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut supports these initiatives unequivocally.