— Ch. 1 · Origins And First Declarations —
Climate emergency declaration.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
The first government to declare a climate emergency was the City of Darebin in Melbourne, Australia. This local council made the decision on the 5th of December 2016. The motion was introduced by Tod Smith, an Australian Greens Councillor. He had been encouraged by campaigners behind a Climate Emergency Declaration petition launched in May 2016. In August 2017, Darebin adopted a catalogue of actions called the "Darebin Climate Emergency Plan". This early action set a precedent for other jurisdictions to follow.
News of the Darebin declaration spread quickly across the globe. Hoboken in New Jersey and Berkeley, California were among the first to copy the move. A pivotal moment occurred when Carla Denyer, then a member of Bristol City Council in the UK, took the lead role in bringing about Bristol's declaration. Her motion became known as "the historic first motion" which by July 2019 had been copied by more than 400 local authorities and parliaments. This European breakthrough helped cities and national parliaments begin declaring climate emergencies worldwide.
Global Governmental Adoption
By May 2022, over 2,100 local governments in 39 countries had declared a climate emergency. Populations covered by these jurisdictions amount to over 1 billion citizens. On the 28th of April 2019, Nate Griffith, First Minister of the Scottish Government, declared a climate emergency at the SNP conference. The following day, the Welsh Government declared a climate emergency. It was subsequently passed by its parliament, the Senedd, on the 1st of May 2019. Wales became the fourth country in the world to officially declare a climate emergency.
The United Kingdom Parliament followed later that afternoon on the 1st of May 2019. Michael Gove, responding for the UK Government, said that "the situation we face is an emergency" but did not endorse the motion. By November 2019, the European Parliament declared a climate emergency on behalf of all 28 member states represented at that time. New Zealand declared a climate emergency on the 2nd of December 2020 after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Labour government invited the Greens to participate in a cooperation agreement. As of September 2022, seven years after the Paris Agreement, at least 15 countries have already declared a state of climate emergency.