page_title: History of climate change policy and politics
section_title: Activism
hierarchical_section_title: History of climate change policy and politics / Activism
caption_attribution_description: English: Climate activist Greta Thunberg discussed EU plans to tackle the climate emergency with Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday 4 March. The climate activist was at the Parliament to discuss the Climate Law, a proposal seeking to commit the EU to carbon neutrality by 2050. Addressing the committee, Thunberg criticised the proposal as insufficient: “The EU must lead the way. You have the moral obligation to do so and you have a unique economical and political opportunity to become a real climate leader. You, yourselves, declared that we are in a climate and environment emergency. You said this was an existential threat. Now you must prove that you mean it.” It is vital to follow “ a science-based pathway”. “Anything else is surrender,” she said. “This climate law is surrender because nature doesn’t bargain and you cannot make deals with physics.” Introducing her, environment committee chair Pascal Canfin said: “Everyone has their role to play in this. I am deeply convinced that what we need is the energy of our young people. No society is transformed, no society can respond to the kind of challenges we face on climate if we do not take on board the energy coming from our young people. And you embody that.” Read more: &lt;a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200227STO73520/greta-thunberg-urges-meps-to-show-climate-leadership" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200227...&lt;/a&gt; This photo is free to use under Creative Commons license CC-BY-4.0 and must be credited: "CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2020 – Source: EP". (&lt;a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/&lt;/a&gt;) No model release form if applicable. For bigger HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu Deutsch: Greta Thunberg spricht auf einer Sitzung des Umweltausschusses des Europäischen Parlaments am 3. März 2020
context_page_description: The history of climate change policy and politics refers to the continuing history of political actions, policies, trends, controversies and activist efforts as they pertain to the issue of global warming and other environmental anomalies. Dryzek, Norgaard, and Schlosberg suggest that critical reflection on the history of climate policy is necessary because it provides 'ways to think about one of the most difficult issues we human beings have brought upon ourselves in our short life on the planet’.
  Climate change emerged as a political issue in the 1970s, where activist and formal efforts were taken to ensure environmental crises were addressed on a global scale. International policy regarding climate change has focused on cooperation and the establishment of international guidelines to address global warming. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a largely accepted international agreement that has continuously developed to meet new challenges.
  Domestic policy on climate change has focused on both establishing internal measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and incorporating international guidelines into domestic law.
context_section_description: Since the early 1970s, climate activists have called for more effective political action regarding global warming and other environmental anomalies. In 1970, Earth Day was the first large-scale environmental movement that called for the protection of all life on earth. The Friends of Earth organisation was also founded in 1970. Between 2006 and 2009, the Campaign against Climate Change and other British organisations staged a series of demonstrations to encourage governments to make more serious attempts to address climate change. 
  In 2019, activists, most of whom were young people, participated in a global climate strike to criticise the lack of international and political action to address the worsening impacts of climate change. Greta Thunberg, a 17-year-old activist from Sweden, became a figurehead for the movement.
caption: Thunberg in 2020
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "100", "Image YResolution": "100", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2020:07:02 15:00:27", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4741", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1111", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1525"}