New Mexicans join in worldwide climate action | My View ... - Santa Fe New Mexican

New Mexicans join in worldwide climate action | My View | santafenewmexican.com

While New Mexico touts a surplus from oil and gas revenue, our world is suffering. In recent weeks, communities across the country have faced unprecedented challenges, including historic flooding in Mexico and California; ravaged coastlines from Florida to the Carolinas thanks to Hurricane Idalia; the deadliest wildfires in Hawaii’s modern history; and here in New Mexico, an alarming trend of at least 15 days with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees — more than any other year ever recorded.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres emphasizes the need for “disruption to stop the destruction.” The science is clear: To give us a 50% chance of limiting warning to 1.5 degrees Celsius, no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be approved, and all existing infrastructure must be phased out by 2034. To accelerate action by governments, business, finance, local authorities and civil society, the U.N. secretary-general is convening a Climate Ambition Summit at U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 20.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Democrats are planning an Advanced Energy Summit where they’ll platform a barrage of industry-backed solutions that prolong the profits of the fossil fuel industry for the next few decades — while simultaneously worsening this crisis through historic levels of fossil fuel extraction. In just the past year, New Mexico’s oil production exploded to 1,600,000 barrels a day, outpacing Texas for the third year in a row and accounting for half of the nation’s overall gains in production — all while Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is celebrated as a climate champion nationally and across the globe.

Feleecia Guillen was born and raised in New Mexico and is now a student at the University of New Mexico. She is a youth leader with Youth United for Climate Crisis Action and the director of communication and outreach for UNM Leaders for Environmental Action and Foresight.