The European Union’s legislature declared a climate “emergency” on Thursday in a symbolic bid to push the issue as high as possible on the agenda of the EU’s executive team. The parliament voted 429/225 with 19 abstentions to call the increasing environmental challenges linked to climate change an “emergency.”Renew Europe MEP Pascal Canfin, who initiated the move, said it made Europe “the first continent to declare a climate and environmental emergency.” Canfin said the parliament is meeting the expectations of European citizens. The 28-nation EU has long been at the forefront of the global climate debate, a role that has been reinforced since the United States pulled out of the Paris climate agreement. And new EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already stressed that climate change will be the top priority early on in her five-year term which starts on Sunday. Von der Leyen’s Germany has long been an incubator of Europe’s environmental consciousness and on Thursday, activists staged protests targeting coal-fired power plants and mines in the country.

Source: ABC News November 28, 2019 12:04 UTC