Linda Terwilliger: We cannot afford to ignore climate change

To The Daily Sun,

The Glasgow Climate Pact calls on 197 countries to report their progress towards more climate ambition next year at COP27. Also, the pact firms up the global agreement to accelerate action on climate this decade.

The language provides important building blocks for progress. However, its disappointing given the clear and present danger of our global climate crisis, which is the biggest known threat to our civilization today.

Government policymakers at all levels, here and abroad, must urgently and decisively enact climate legislation to effectively adapt to the impacts of climate change, cut harmful emissions in half by 2030 and reach zero emissions by 2050. These emissions goals are the minimum required to hold global warming below the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold.

To avert more catastrophic planetary warming from greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon and methane, governments must implement comprehensive legislation to rapidly switch to a clean energy economy. At the same time, policies must support a just transition that protects the financial health and welfare of consumers, workers, businesses and the most vulnerable communities.

As ordinary citizens, we have a job to do. By working together, we can elect government officials who will rapidly institute laws and programs to drastically reduce harmful emissions like carbon and methane and incentivize the switch to clean energy sources.

Call and write your state and national representatives — asking them to fight for appropriate climate legislation to reach the stated goals. 

At the polls, vote for candidates who are committed to making the policy changes necessary to achieve zero emissions by 2050.

We don’t have the luxury to feel complacent. Extreme weather caused by climate change is severely taxing our natural, social and financial resources here in New Hampshire and throughout our world.

Over the past 10 years, New Hampshire has experienced at least four severe flooding events, costing the state millions of dollars in damages from blown out culverts, flooded roads and severe erosion on stream banks.

In the U.S., 2020 was an historic year of climate disasters. There were 22 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, shattering the previous annual record of 16 events in 2017 and 2011. The cumulative cost for the 285 weather and climate disasters recorded since 1980 exceeds $1.875 trillion.

As climate change continues to intensify, the staggering costs to U.S. taxpayers will climb, unless our government takes swift and sustained action to drastically cut harmful emissions and switch to clean energy. We simply cannot afford to ignore climate change and its impact on humanity and the environment any longer.

Linda Terwilliger

Gilford