NH Climate Activists Join National Call For President Biden to Declare a Climate Emergency

The 350 New Hampshire Action team hung a banner over Route 16 to urge people to call on President Biden to declare a climate emergency

DOVER, NH -- Individuals and organizations across the country held rallies, hung banners, held phone drives, and sent messages to President Biden urging him to declare a climate emergency. In New Hampshire, climate activists with 350 New Hampshire Action hung a banner over Route 16 in Dover to bring awareness to the climate declaration.

“President Biden has the power to declare the climate crisis a national emergency,” explains Elisabeth Bialosky, Youth Campaigns Organizer with 350NH Action. “We see worsening droughts and floods in New Hampshire already. Congress and the current administration need to step up and use all possible avenues to prevent further destruction of our climate.”

By declaring a climate emergency, President Biden would have the authority to use emergency powers to end fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters, expand local, distributed, renewable affordable energy system production, deny new permits for fossil fuel infrastructure, and direct historic funding to communities most impacted by the climate crisis.

Elisabeth and other 350 New Hampshire community members organized a banner drop in Dover to spread awareness of this “climate emergency” declaration to people on the Seacoast and the hundreds who travel up and down Route 16 every weekend. 

“People are suffering due to heat waves, floods, and other climate-crisis-fueled disasters” said Dominic Osmund, Electoral Climate Organizer with 350NH Action. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make sweeping efforts at the state level and the federal level to reduce fossil fuel use, transition to renewable energy, and invest resources in the communities impacted by climate disasters across the country.”

This action was coordinated with the national People Vs. Fossil Fuels coalition, aimed at pressuring the Biden administration to declare a climate emergency and end fossil fuel leases. 350 New Hampshire Action recently joined this coalition, and hopes to utilize New Hampshire’s “first in the nation” status to push presidential candidates and members of Congress to pursue bold, meaningful legislation that tackles the climate crisis on the necessary scale.