#WeAreEarthDay50: No More Fossil Fuel Projects
Governor Phil Murphy, NJDEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe, and NJBPU President Joe Fiordoliso
As our society wages a historic mobilization to fight the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, we must bring the same urgency and collective resolve to our fight against the climate crisis. We are taking unprecedented steps to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 infections; we need to treat the climate crisis with similar urgency by flattening and reducing the curve of climate pollutants. The world’s top scientists issued a dire warning in late 2018 with the United Nations panel on climate change report - cut global greenhouse gasses 45% below 2010 levels in this decade, or face runaway climate collapse.
Despite this dire warning, 13 major fossil fuel projects are proposed or moving forward in New Jersey, including new fracked gas pipelines, power plants and compressor stations, a new LNG export terminal, and massive highway expansion proposals. If these 13 projects are put into operation, they would increase greenhouse gas emissions in NJ by over 32%. The Governor has been taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to fight COVID-19 and save lives. He must fight the climate crisis with the same urgency, and end the profound disconnect between his lofty rhetoric and the grim reality that fossil fuel expansion is moving forward under his watch.
We need our state’s leaders to unite with us behind the science, stand up to the oil and gas industry, and say, “No More!” That’s why on this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the original watershed moment in our movement, the Empower NJ coalition is launching an ambitious new petition drive for an unprecedented mobilization on climate.
Sponsored by
To:
Governor Phil Murphy, NJDEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe, and NJBPU President Joe Fiordoliso
From:
[Your Name]
As our society wages a historic mobilization to fight the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, we must bring the same urgency and collective resolve to our fight against the climate crisis. New Jersey cannot wait two more years to go through a formal greenhouse gas regulatory process to begin the rapid emissions reductions that both the US National Climate Assessment and United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say are necessary NOW to avoid climate catastrophe. We, the undersigned residents of New Jersey, demand:
1. A moratorium on all fossil fuel expansion projects to protect our health and prevent any additional increase to climate destroying greenhouse gases.
2. Immediate implementation of policies to achieve a 45% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in NJ from their 2010 levels by the year 2030 per the IPCC’s warning. Emissions reductions must be prioritized in environmental justice communities.
3. An urgent comprehensive plan to move NJ off fossil fuels, create green jobs, and leverage our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic to transition rapidly onto 100% clean renewable energy sources such as wind and solar no later than 2050.
As we face unprecedented threats from both the pandemic and the climate emergency to our public health and economy, we are demonstrating through our response to COVID-19 that with courageous leadership, ingenuity, and solidarity, the people of New Jersey are ready to get to work building a healthier society, now and for generations to come. We must do the same in our fight for a livable climate future.