APRIL 22 EARTH DAY 50

     GLOBAL EARTH DAY 2020

     (C)RON COBB

EARTH DAY 2020 FAQ

When is Earth Day 2020?

What is the theme for Earth Day 2020?

What is the history of Earth Day?

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EARTH DAY 2020 THEME: CLIMATE ACTION

The enormous challenges — but also the vast opportunities — of acting on climate change have distinguished the issue as the most pressing topic for the 50th anniversary. Climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the life-support systems that make our world habitable.

At the end of 2020, nations will be expected to increase their national commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The time is now for citizens to call for greater global ambition to tackle our climate crisis. Unless every country in the world steps up – and steps up with urgency and ambition — we are consigning current and future generations to a dangerous future.

Earth Day 2020 will be far more than a day. It must be a historic moment when citizens of the world rise up in a united call for the creativity, innovation, ambition, and bravery that we need to meet our climate crisis and seize the enormous opportunities of a zero-carbon future.







BUILDING ON THE EARTH DAY LEGACY

The first Earth Day in 1970 mobilized millions of Americans for the protection of the planet. On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to the streets, college campuses and hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and demand a new way forward for our planet. The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement and is now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event.

Earth Day led to passage of landmark environmental laws in the United States, including the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. Many countries soon adopted similar laws, and in 2016, the United Nations chose Earth Day as the day to sign the Paris Climate Agreement into force.

Photo Credit: University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability via Flickr

New York City’s Fifth Avenue is filled with thousands of people when the street was closed to motor traffic for the First Earth Day on April 22, 1970
Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS | Photo Credit: Tommy Japan via Flickr

Climate strikers take to the streets of New York City in September 2019 for global strikes coordinated by the Fridays for Future youth climate movement | Photo Credit: Inma Galvez-Shorts

“Despite that amazing success and decades of environmental progress, we find ourselves facing an even more dire, almost existential, set of global environmental challenges, from loss of biodiversity to climate change to plastic pollution, that call for action at all levels of government,” said Denis Hayes, the organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970 and Earth Day Network’s Board Chair Emeritus.

“Progress has slowed, climate change impacts grow, and our adversaries have become better financed,” said Earth Day Network president Kathleen Rogers. “We find ourselves today in a world facing global threats that demand a unified global response. For Earth Day 2020, we will build a new generation of environmentalist activists, engaging millions of people worldwide.”