Your group might like to launch your own Climate Emergency Declaration petition as part of the petitionSTORM. It could be addressed to the national parliament, like the existing petitions, or it could be a petition to your own state parliament, or even to your local Council.
To be part of the petitionSTORM, your petition needs to share the same top-level climate emergency declaration ask as the existing petitions, but the body of your petition can reflect the focus and preferred messaging of your group.
It’s much like a climate march, where different groups march together for a common top-level ask of climate action despite having different concerns and messages.
Please make sure your petition includes words to the effect that:
1. We face a climate emergency
2. We call on our political leaders to declare a climate emergency
3. We need the government to follow through with the necessary resources and action to fully address the crisis at emergency speed.
If you are launching your own petition, please let us know so we can plan joint delivery as a petitionSTORM as soon as the overall number of signatures is high enough.
Or, if you like the existing petition with accompanying actions questions here, that one can be embedded in your group’s website, if you wish, either with or without the surrounding context. It has a centralised Google Drive mechanism that automatically takes care of recording signatures and updating counters at all sites where it is embedded. The WordPress code for embedding the petition is here. It can quite easily be converted into ‘clean’ html-code.
Example of a possible state-level petition
We call on the [state or territory] Parliament to declare a climate emergency and mobilise state resources accordingly.
In February 2016, average global temperatures topped 1.5°C, and scientists tell us another 0.5°C of warming is already ‘in the system’ unless we can also draw down excess carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere.
Climate impacts are already dangerous. People are dying from heat stroke, starvation, and extreme weather events. Wild fires are increasing, permafrost is thawing, low lying land is being inundated by seawater, and coral reefs, mangroves, kelp forests, and other ecosystems are being severely damaged.
In particular, we call on Parliament to ban any further public or private investment in projects that will make the climate emergency worse, such as coal, oil, and gas projects. Instead, Parliament should facilitate investment in beneficial projects such as renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, reforestation, and climate-friendly land use, and phase out existing sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Any essential processes and practices that cannot be made to avoid greenhouse gas emissions entirely should be offset by draw down projects. Projects that draw down excess carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere should also be implemented.
We also ask the [state or territory] Parliament to urge the federal government to declare a climate emergency and mobilise resources accordingly to restore a safe climate as rapidly as possible.
→ Collect online petition signatures
Start an online petition using the free ActionNetwork petition tool. See how to Set up an online petition
→ Collect hard copy petition signatures
Download the petition sheet and collect signatures at events, markets, at work, in your street, or anywhere! See the Collect hard copy petition signatures page for details.