Do not confuse World War Zero, the newly formed international coalition to combat climate change founded by former senator and secretary of state John Kerry, with World War Z. The former is an effort to use the star power of celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Clinton, Al Sharpton and Sting to make global warming the top issue of the 2020 elections. The latter is a film in which actor Brad Pitt plays a United Nations employee who saves the world from zombies. There are, however, parallels between the two.
In the movie, a virus turns people into the human version of rabid raccoons. In the real world, as seen by many who sign on to the World War Zero campaign, zombies are those who, despite years of warnings from eminent scientists and ample evidence, continue to burn fossil fuels and pump carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In both cases, it’s human existence itself that’s at stake.
An overstatement? Perhaps, but the world leaders currently meeting in Madrid, Spain, for what has become an annual discussion of climate change listened as the president of a small nation in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands described how, fueled by rising seas and more extreme weather, 15-foot waves surged through her country’s capital city. Sea level rise could, within decades, obliterate her nation and low-lying areas of many others, including places like Miami and New Orleans.
The past decade is on track to be the warmest on record, according to the World Meteorological Association. A group representing 11,000 scientists recently concluded that without drastic action “untold suffering” is likely. “We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency,” the group’s report states. “To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live.”
Despite the Paris climate accord’s pledge by more than 180 nations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, they have continued to rise. The biggest emitters, the United States, China and India, have fallen behind nations that have taken more aggressive action. Though more than 50 heads of state are attending the Madrid conference, President Trump, who scoffs at climate change and plans to pull out of the Paris climate accords next year, will not be among them.
Kerry and the group’s co-founders and early supporters, among them Democrats Jimmy Carter and Stacey Abrams and Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Kasich, say that they seek to mobilize a bipartisan effort to spark conversations about climate change. They want people who may not always agree on what steps to take to nonetheless act, whether that means reducing one’s own carbon footprint or supporting candidates pledged to combat climate change.
World War Zero’s leaders are right when they say the battle to prevent catastrophic climate change should not and must not be a partisan fight. Like zombies, wildfires, floods, droughts and hurricanes have no regard for the party or political philosophy of their victims. Yet the reality is that one person, more than anyone else on the planet, stands in the way of meaningful action to avert potential disaster: President Trump.
Without American leadership, participation in the Paris climate accords and actions to reduce carbon emissions that will serve as an example for other nations, the conversations the campaign wants to foster will be about missed opportunities, lost species, displaced people and drowned cities. That is a message World War Zero must convey.