BRUNSWICK — Brunswick town officials are committed to helping stem the tide of climate change however possible, according to a new “climate resolution” passed Monday night.
Councilors unanimously approved the resolution, pledging to help “safeguard against the current and potential consequences of climate change, including adopting specific policy goals and funding accomplishment of those goals.”
They will also educate residents about the “consequence of climate change, including the need for financial resources and regulatory oversight to eliminate greenhouse gasses.”
The resolution comes at the request of a group of Bowdoin College students who spoke at a recent meeting asking the council to declare a climate emergency.
The goal is that it will “kickstart action around climate change and elevate the level of discussion” around the topic, Bowdoin student Leif Maynard said. “The climate crisis is an emergency and it’s important to recognize that,” he added.
By signing the resolution, councilors also urge “all governments and people to initiate social and economic mobilization to reverse global warming,” citing increasingly destructive wildfires, floods, rising seas, droughts and extreme weather.
“Humanity can no longer safely emit greenhouse gases and must demand an emergency mobilization effort to reach zero emissions across all sectors,” council chair John Perreault wrote in the resolution. He told students and the council Monday that the specific plans have and will continue to be discussed as part of the town’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan update.
“We want to collaborate in town more,” student Perrin Milliken told the council at the last meeting. “We don’t want this just to be a college thing. This is a young people’s movement and we want to get the local schools and residents involved and get everyone to cooperate together.”
Brunswick joins Portland, South Portland and Bar Harbor in the declaration of a climate emergency and the formation of a climate resolution.
At the state level, government officials are already working toward a similar goal.
In September, Gov. Janet Mills issued an executive order pledging that Maine’s economy will be carbon-neutral by 2045, according to the Portland Press Herald, a goal shared by Boston, New York, Hawaii, Sweden, France and Costa Rica.
This followed commitments enacted by the Legislature in the spring to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050, “moves that will require swapping fossil fuels for solar, wind and hydro-powered alternatives, from electric cars and heat pumps to fuel cell-driven trucks, buses and boats over the next 30 years,” the Press Herald reported.
Monday marked the start of a two-week international climate conference in Madrid, as delegates from 200 countries put the finishing touches on the rules governing the 2015 Paris climate accord, according to the Associated Press.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the threat of global warming is no longer over the horizon, but is “in sight and hurtling toward us.”
Friday, Bowdoin students and Brunswick community members plan to rally on the mall at noon as part of a national climate strike, “to make climate change an urgent priority across America.”
According to Milliken, climate change “is not something that’s going to happen in the future, it’s happening now.”
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
