LWVUS sent a memo to members of Congress urging them to support S. Con. Res. 13/H. Con. Res. 56. This concurrent resolution recognizes the disproportionate impact of the human-caused climate crisis on the health, economic opportunities, and fundamental rights of children in the US and acknowledges the need for the executive branch to develop a national, comprehensive, science-based, and just climate recovery plan.
August 16, 2023
To: Members of Congress
From: Virginia Kase Solomón, CEO, League of Women Voters
Re: Protect Our Children and Their Constitutional Rights
On behalf of thousands of League members across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the League of Women Voters urges you to support S. Con. Res. 13/H. Con. Res. 56, the reintroduced Children’s Fundamental Rights and Climate Recovery Resolution. This resolution acknowledges the disproportionate impact that climate change has on our nation’s youth and the urgent need for the United States to act.
The human-caused climate crisis threatens the physical, psychological, and economic well-being of our nation, with its greatest impact on the most vulnerable communities that have contributed the least to climate change-causing emissions. Today’s children are born into a climate system that harms their present and threatens their future. We cannot allow them to inherit this crisis.
Ensuring a habitable environment is necessary to preserve our children’s fundamental rights. The Children’s Fundamental Rights and Climate Recovery Resolution calls on the executive departments and agencies to develop a national, comprehensive, science-based, and just climate recovery plan. This plan would put the nation on a trajectory to reduce global atmospheric carbon dioxide to below 350 parts per million by the year 2100.
As climate change has increasingly devastating consequences for people’s lives and livelihoods, the need for the nation to take bold action only becomes more urgent. When Congress first introduced this resolution in 2020, the League of Women Voters joined more than 50 expert organizations in endorsing it. Today, the resolution has support from more than 140 leading climate, public health, and human rights organizations.
If you believe in protecting our children and upholding their constitutional rights, I urge you to support the Children’s Fundamental Rights and Climate Recovery Resolution and give our nation’s youth the chance of a better future.
Sincerely,
Virginia Kase Solomón
CEO, League of Women Voters of the United States
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