Hundreds of American companies, including Mars, Nike, Levi Strauss and Starbucks, have a message for President-elect Donald Trump. Failing to adhere to the Paris Agreement is bad for the global economy. If the United States abandons its path to a low-carbon future, the American economy, and the planet that sustains it, will be at grave risk.
In an open letter addressed to Mr. Trump — as well as President Obama and members of Congress — 365 companies and major investors banded together to plea for the “right action” by the new administration, demanding that the United States not walk away from current climate policies. Investing in the green economy will spur job creation and ensure U.S market competitiveness. Importantly, keeping its climate commitments will also encourage other countries to follow suit with their own mitigation plans.
American companies have long recognized the benefit of green policies, and have been actively involved in the fight against climate change. In 2009, hundreds of companies similarly urged President Obama as he headed to Copenhagen for climate negotiations to avoid climate change’s “catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”
Donald Trump and his three adult children signed that letter.
“We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today,” the letter tells the President and Congress. “Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.”
Seven years and a divisive Presidential campaign that ultimately placed him in the global climate driver’s seat, Trump’s stance has veered way off course. While his real estate empire prepares for rising tides, the messaging from his campaign has taken a turn. Climate change is a hoax by China he tweets (For the record, China denies they invented climate change). Trump’s pick to oversee the EPA, a climate skeptic named Myron Ebell, has resoundingly declared that he will not support climate action.
Donald Trump has also pledged to “cancel” the Paris Agreement, expand carbon- intensive coal burning, and refutes the underlying science of climate change.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration recently issued a detailed 111-page document outlining a “mid century strategy” to massively slash U.S. carbon emissions by the year 2050, reducing them 80 percent “or more” below their 2005 levels.
As a result of these new political twists and turns, the environmental movement is now more charged up than ever to fight and expand what President Obama started.
And, Voices.Earth has a plan.
We are working on a new campaign called “Fight Back in the Name of Earth,” which aims to spotlight the organizations and people who are leading this new groundswell of activists rising up against Trump’s anti-environmental agenda.
Registering a .Earth domain also unites us as a common movement. We share our concern for the planet and its future. We value a clean, safe environment under a sustainable economy. With a .Earth domain name, we demonstrate our strength in numbers. We will be hard to ignore.
With this campaign, we will battle the climate skeptics and engage organizations and citizens to join the fight.
Time is running out – let’s all fight back in the name of Earth.
