Toward a Regional Climate Emergency Mobilization

Now that the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, and San Francisco have committed to emergency climate mobilization, regional action is the necessary next step.

City council members in Berkeley and Richmond are leading an effort to organize a regional meeting next fall, to start planning specific Bay Area-wide strategies for a just transition to a green economy. The goals of this campaign are to:

• Pass Climate Emergency Declarations and Fossil Fuel Free Resolutions with explicit commitments to an emergency climate mobilization and just transition across municipalities and regulatory bodies of 9 Bay Area counties
• Commit elected officials, municipal departments and regulatory bodies to radical and expedited action toward a just transition including climate mobilization departments, staff, resources, programs, regulatory legislation, incentives and constituent/community engagement and participation.
• Mobilize sectors and constituents toward creating the mandate and critical mass needed for a radical just transition and political influence required on local and State government, regulatory bodies and corporations
• Create regional coordination bodies with clear mandate and priorities toward climate mobilization and a just transition
• Foster the creation of broad and powerful regional coalitions to see the mobilization through, advocating for policies and holding mobilized governments accountable
• Offer a vision of an alternative that is regenerative, based on a safe climate, equitable, healthier and more just – use this terrifying threat as an opportunity to build unity and create justice – a true “Green New Deal” that is based in public good, driven by and accountable to community and mobilized by government rather than based in profit and privatization of natural resources.

A real climate emergency mobilization will require the participation of public officials, unions and other social and economic justice organizations, climate and environmental justice organizations, frontline communities — and more. There’s lots of work to do.

Come to the next meeting to get involved.