Secretary John Kerry: Declare a Climate Emergency and Net Zero by 2025

Below is a letter from Extinction Rebellion Boston to Secretary John Kerry, appointed to lead the climate envoy as part of the Biden Administration. We are urging him to Declare a Climate Emergency and take action to reach net zero emissions by 2025. Our demand for net zero by 2025 comes from this data as reported by climate scientists working with Extinction Rebellion.

To contact Secretary Kerry and President Biden as an individual, visit here for a template.

Dear Secretary Kerry,

Congratulations on your new appointment. You have an urgent and critical role to play, not only for our country but for the world. As we survey the ever accelerating consequences of an overheating planet, many of us believe the next four years will be our last shot at avoiding the worst consequences and changing the trajectory we are on. That trajectory, by 2100, will result in a temperature rise of between 2-4 degrees centigrade. This would result in creating what climate scientists have coined an ‘uninhabitable hothouse earth,’ rendering much of the planet uninhabitable.

I am writing this letter on behalf of Extinction Rebellion Boston. Extinction Rebellion Boston is an autonomous chapter of the international grassroots environmental movement, Extinction Rebellion (XR), which started in London in 2018.

Extinction Rebellion is a politically non-partisan international movement that uses non-violent direct action to persuade governments and corporate leaders to act swiftly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency in order to avert societal collapse caused by widespread climate and ecological disaster. Extinction Rebellion unites all of humanity behind the singular goal of ensuring a just and livable future for generations to come.

We are urging the Biden administration to declare a Climate Emergency as other countries have done. This makes clear the gravity of the situation and would give our President more leeway and speed to combat the climate and ecological crises, including access to direct additional funding. We believe this would give an important framework to take the necessary action to not only mitigate the current crises but also enable us to pass on a just and livable future to the next generation.

Extinction Rebellion is different from other climate groups because we demand net zero emissions by 2025, while many other climate groups aim for net zero by 2050. This target, admittedly vertiginous, better matches climate science than any other target. If we wait many years to achieve net zero, we will pass the tipping points of ecological catastrophe and irreparably render large regions of the earth uninhabitable, setting off mass migrations, human deaths and animal extinctions, disrupting societies and governments around the world.

Eventually, human intervention will no longer be effective at preventing climate, ecological, and the resulting social collapse. Scientists warn that their initial projections and timelines were grossly inaccurate and they are unable to predict when we might reach the point of no return. I strongly urge you, based on science, to pursue a more aggressive goal of net zero by 2025.

We are counting on you, Mr. Kerry, to pursue, undeterred by special interests, a climate agenda that rises to meet the magnitude and severity of the challenges humanity is facing. Declare a climate emergency and take urgent action, pushing the U.S. and leaders around the globe to reach net zero emissions by 2025. Let's build back better!

Sincerely,

Extinction Rebellion Boston