Call for Urgent Governmental Action on Climate Change

Scientists Undertake Global
Week of Action, April 4-9

Map of countries where actions on climate change are being held by scientists, April 4-9, 2022.

As part of the deepening worldwide concern over climate change and its impact on humanity and the natural world, Scientist Rebellion is undertaking a week of actions, from April 4 to 9, to target “scientific and governmental institutions in over 25 countries, on every continent […] to highlight the urgency and injustice of the climate and ecological crisis.” The actions are aimed at mobilizing 1,000 scientists around the world to take part in civil disobedience. They have called on the general public to hold teach-ins and other events in parallel with their actions. The scientists note that they may face arrest for their actions, and presumably for this reason, they have not announced specific events beforehand. The protests come on the occasion of the release of the report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on April 4.

To emphasize the urgency of the situation, Scientist Rebellion is holding its week of actions under the slogan “1.5°C is dead, climate revolution now!” This refers to the target to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2030, set by the 196 parties at COP 21 in Paris in December 2015. The difference between a 1.5°C as compared to a 2°C is said to put significantly more people and ecosystems at serious risk. A 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C issued by the IPCC stated at that time that this goal remained possible but that it would require “rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems [that] are unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed, and imply deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options.”

Dr. Rose Abramoff, a U.S. climate change scientist who is taking part in the actions, warns that “we have not made the changes necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C, rendering this goal effectively impossible. We need to both understand the consequences of our inaction as well as limit fossil fuel emissions as much and as quickly as possible. As scientists, we tend to be risk-averse. We don’t want to risk our jobs, our reputations, and our time. But it is no longer sufficient to do our research and expect others to read our publications and understand the severity and urgency of the climate crisis. On the 6th of April, together with hundreds of others around the globe, I will take action to urge governments and society to stop ignoring the collective findings of decades of research. Let’s make this crisis impossible to ignore.”

Scientist Rebellion, in an April 5 press release states that the latest IPCC report has been “watered down” through the political review process and does not hold “vested interests” to account, describing it as “alarmingly reserved, docile and conservative.” To corroborate their assessment, the organization points out the response of UN Secretary General António Guterres, who called the report “a litany of broken climate promises,” adding that “We are on a fast-track to climate disaster. We are in a climate emergency.”

For more information, visit scientistrebellion.com.

“Scientific strike” and “educational disobedience” on one of the campuses of Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, April 5, 2022.