In a world warmed by climate change, the polar bear's sea ice home is literally melting away. Without action, wild polar bears—the very symbol of the Arctic—could disappear.
Climate change threatens polar bears, but the impacts reach far beyond polar bears and far beyond the Arctic. People are at risk, too, from rising sea levels, crop failures, and extreme weather events from droughts to floods.
Polar bears can't walk to the climate change talks in Paris this December to ask for help. You can speak up for them by signing our Petition for Polar Bears.
Please sign our petition to ask the world's nations to create a plan for greenhouse gas reductions that are fast and deep enough to help polar bears—and, by extension, people. By signing, you'll speak up for renewable energy, for efforts to stop deforestation, for a greener world.
You'll help ensure a future for polar bears. And by ensuring a future for polar bears, you'll help countless other species—including our own.
Dear Executive Secretary Figueres,
As our world warms from human-caused climate change, the Arctic is warming at an even faster pace, resulting in the rapid loss of arctic sea ice. This frozen platform provides critical habitat for animals like the polar bear and is a crucial part of the global climate system. When this protective cover of sea ice disappears, every nation will feel the impacts—not just polar bears.
As the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, you have the power to save arctic sea ice. And by so doing, you'll protect a key element of our planet's life support system, one that affects us all.
We understand the problem and we have the tools in hand to begin reversing the warming trends. We have yet-untapped global innovation that is only waiting for adequate investment. The economics of action and inaction are clear.
Therefore, I urge you and your colleagues at the Paris Climate Change Conference to enact a new agreement that will ensure meaningful action on climate change. Key elements should include:
- Ambitious action before and after 2020
- A strong legal framework and clear rules
- A central role for equity
- A long-term approach
- Public finance for adaptation and the low carbon transition
- A framework for action on deforestation and land use
- Clear links to the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals
We have moved past the time for talk—now is the time for action. For the polar bears, for the Arctic, for all of us, I urge you to lead the signing and implementation of a meaningful treaty.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
