Last weekend in Orlando the platform committee of the Democratic Party added language into their platform acknowledging the official position of the Democratic Party to be that we are in a global climate emergency.   Further, the platform  acknowledges the scale of the threat to be so large that it will require a leadership response from our country on the scale of our national mobilization to confront the threat of fascism during WWII.  The platform language I offered through an amendment entitled, Global Climate Leadership, explicitly acknowledges that anything short of that will bring catastrophic consequences to civilization:

But instead of taking up the challenge of climate change, Republicans are threatening to shut down the government.

21 May 2015: During the Business & Climate Summit, a key event of Climate Week Paris, leaders of major businesses worldwide called on policymakers to leverage public and private finance to shift to a low-carbon economy, introduce carefully designed and predictable carbon pricing, and eliminate fossil-fuel subsidies. The Summit mobilized over 6.5 million companies from more than 130 countries through 25 business networks, who pledged to lead the global transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy.

Europe continues to lead the world on climate action as Australia lags further behind. This week the European Parliament has begun debate on 2 key reforms to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme – the first being the withdrawal of surplus allowances to raise the price of permits; the second to set a market stability reserve to avoid the low prices that have hampered the scheme for the past several years.