The 50th anniversary
of Earth Day in 2020
will mark a pivotal year for our planet.
To mark 50 years of action for our planet, Earth Day Network, the global coordinator of Earth Day, will bring Earth Day back to its roots building an intergenerational movement demanding change.
The urgency has never been greater, and the stakes have never been higher – we are now in an environmental emergency and a climate breakdown.
Earth Day 1970 gave a voice to an emerging public consciousness about the state of our planet. In the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, the environment was in a deplorable state:
1.air pollution was impacting human health,
2.oil spills were devastating our ocean and killing marine species,
3.rivers were so polluted that they literally caught fire.
Earth Day 1970 would come to provide a voice to an emerging environmental consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement to put environmental concerns on the front page.
On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. populations at the time — mobilized for action, taking 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.
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 involved.