We call on world leaders to come together and commit to start phasing out fossil fuels immediately.
Opinion piece by
Saber Chowdhury, Honorary IPU President, MP, Bangladesh
Ed Markey, Senator, US Congress
On March 20, the United Nations’ top experts on climate science released a synthesis report on climate change. In it, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s peak climate science body declares that we have fallen dangerously behind in trying to control climate change as our greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow instead of decline.
“The pace and scale of what has been done so far, and current plans are insufficient to tackle climate change,” the authors of the report warn.
Despite these and previous warnings by scientists, the world is dragging its feet on taking the drastic climate action needed to keep the world from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius – the threshold beyond which climate change will have the most devastating consequences for humanity.
We are already witnessing what climate chaos can do to our civilisation. Our nations – the United States and Bangladesh – are already suffering. Millions of Americans and Bangladeshis have been hit by floods, droughts and other extreme weather made worse by climate change. We have lost countless lives and suffered enormous economic losses due to our inaction.
As elected representatives in the US and Bangladeshi legislatures who care for the fate of our communities, we call for immediate action on climate change. We know that we cannot limit global warming to 1.5C unless we cut significantly our carbon emissions. That is why, we need to agree to phase out fossil fuels starting right now.
The IPCC report is the latest and direst warning that we need to reduce drastically our reliance on fossil fuels.
Read the full opinion piece on Al Jazeera
The views and opinions expressed by parliamentarians on the IPU’s ‘Voices’ pages are their own and do not necessarily reflect the IPU’s position.
Find out more about the IPU’s campaign to mobilize parliaments to act on the climate emergency.
