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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
RESOLUTION DECLARING A CLIMATE EMERGENCY AND MOBILIZATION TO LIMIT THE PROCUREMENT OF SINGLE USE PLASTICS
WHEREAS, on July 6, 2023, the world reached the highest recorded average temperature ever. Re: World Meteorological Organization (July 26, 2023). The month of July 2023 was the hottest month on record globally (NASA, August 2023); and
WHEREAS, 2023 was the warmest year on record since global temperature records began in 1850, and 2023 marked the 47th consecutive year (since 1977) that global land and ocean temperatures have been above the 20th century average; and
WHEREAS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) data, which tends to be more conservative, warns that the year 2024 has a 99% chance it will rank among the top five warmest years in human history; and
WHEREAS, humankind is experiencing death and destruction caused by global warming demonstrated by extreme weather patterns, mass extinction, wildfires, increasing air pollution, rising sea levels, floods, droughts, coastline erosion, rapidly diminishing Artic Sea ice, decreased crop production, and many other alarming changes; and
WHEREAS, in April 2016, world leaders recognized the urgent need to combat climate change thereby signing the Paris Agreement, agreeing to keep global warming at temperatures "well below 2?C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5?C"; and
WHEREAS, in October 2018, the United Nations released a special report which projected that limiting global warming to a temperature increase of 1.5?C above pre-industrial levels will require an unprecedented transformation of every sector of the global economy by 2030; and
WHEREAS, according to the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, 1.5?C of global warming above pre-industrial conditions could expose 500 million people to water poverty, 36 million people to food insecurity due to lower crop yields, and 4.5 billion people...
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