What We Do
Climate change represents the gravest threat to species and ecosystems in our human history. We must urgently and boldly act to mitigate continued warming and myriad other climate effects due to fossil fuel extraction, processing, and burning. Environment Now accordingly seeks to end new oil and gas extraction efforts, with a focus on California, and rapidly phase out existing fossil fuel development and use. We do this by supporting strategic advocacy and science that will make fossil fuels unprofitable and unwanted, and by advancing the shared right to a healthy climate.
Challenges
The U.N. reports the world is on pace to hit 3.1°C warming this century, double the 1.5°C target. Even if nations meet all current promises, at best warming could be limited to a devastating 2.6°C. Nations must cut 42% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 to cling to 1.5°C — a target now likely out of reach, given the accelerating, record pace of GHG emissions.
Though scientists warn the “future of humanity hangs in the balance,” governments plan to produce double the fossil fuels in 2030 than 1.5°C allows, a path the U.N. called “madness.”
Fossil CO2 represents 68 percent of current GHG emissions, with the U.S. producing more crude oil than any other country, ever and leading the world in natural gas exports. Ongoing extraction and processing of fossil fuels continues to move the goalposts further out, with each tenth of a degree of associated warming placing 100 million more people into unprecedented heat.
Our Partners
Environment Now’s partners work in two areas to stop fossil fuel extraction and decelerate the race to an irreversibly overheated planet:
- Project and Accountability Action – Partners are working to stop new fossil fuel extraction and processing projects, especially in California, and to hold industry directly accountable for current and past harms. Examples: Center for Biological Diversity, Rockefeller Family Fund’s Climate Accountability Initiative, NYU Law’s Climate Litigation Accelerator.
- Outreach and Movement Building – Partners are daylighting the devastating harms and deceptions related to fossil fuel extraction and helping to build public action for the right to a healthy climate. Examples: Climate Emergency Fund, Inside Climate News.
Successes
Passionate, talented partners have made significant progress in a short time under Environment Now’s Climate initiative, the newest program. In California, partners have secured a ban on new fracking; setback requirements on oil and gas extraction to protect neighborhoods, schools, and other sensitive sites; and local community authority to prevent new drilling operations.
Nationally, partners are successfully advancing other climate initiatives to hold industry accountable. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments to take fossil fuel accountability cases out of state courts, opening their path to move forward and prompting California to file its own suit. While those cases proceed, new “Climate Superfund Laws” have been introduced in multiple states and in Congress, with Vermont’s law the first to pass, followed by New York. Environment Now partners will be instrumental in providing the scientific and legal support needed to implement and defend these laws, which could collectively require large fossil fuel producers and refiners to allocate billions to trillions of dollars towards climate adaptation infrastructure.
