Dear Delegates and Stakeholders, 

We are an international network of scientists, engineers, physicists, biologists, and public policy experts active in the climate change arena. We are extremely concerned about the accelerating pace of climate disruption and are calling for your leadership to urgently mobilize an expanded global response. Immediate action must be taken to prevent further catastrophic increases in temperature, weather extremes, sea level rise, and polar ice and permafrost melt that could be leading to runaway feedbacks, making future climate stabilization almost impossible to achieve. The reduced temperature difference between the poles and tropics created by polar temperature rising three times faster than the global mean has already resulted in a deadly disruption of jet stream behavior. This has slowed weather patterns and caused increasingly extreme weather events throughout the world. We must collectively commit to restoring a healthy climate now. 

The world needs broader international cooperation to protect humanity and to restore and regenerate  our ecosystems. We ask you to undertake an expanded set of effective climate interventions including immediately launching an expedited, multi-disciplinary, and inclusive program to evaluate and deploy measures designed to regenerate polar ice and reduce extreme weather. All options must be on the table and evaluated for effectiveness, feasibility, equity, safety, timeframe, and the potential for unintended consequences. This program would be accompanied by rapidly scaling up efforts to prevent dangerous global heating and to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations to levels at which civilization has historically developed and can flourish. 

We ask that world leaders commit to developing a climate restoration plan no later than 2023 to limit global warming to well below 1° C. An effective and responsible plan will need to integrate three approaches:  

1. Cooling the planet, particularly the polar regions and the Himalayas,  

2. Reducing GHG emissions, including methane and other short-lived warming agents, and

3. Removing legacy CO2, methane, and other GHGs from the atmosphere. 

The August 2021 IPCC 6th Assessment Report confirms the need for urgent global response. The previously under-estimated pace and impacts of human-caused climate change are producing rising temperatures, deadly heat waves, extreme precipitation events, spreading deserts, declining crop yields, decimated rainforests, raging wildfires, warming oceans, dying coral reefs, diminished biodiversity, and rising sea levels. Crucial regions of the cryosphere, including glaciers, sea ice, and  permafrost, are melting and accelerating feedbacks. Every region of the world is affected.  

Climate change impacts are exacerbating existing regional and global inequities. The communities and groups most vulnerable to climate change impacts are often least responsible for the problem and have limited capacity for mitigation, adaptation, and recovery. Food insecurity, land loss, extreme weather events, and intolerable temperatures are forcing mass migrations of people who have no alternative but to abandon their homelands. 

As climate change threatens humanity and the biosphere, it exerts destabilizing forces on national security, economic sustainability, and financial and political systems throughout the world. The challenges are unprecedented in magnitude, urgency, complexity, and risk. 

Although it is critical to reduce GHG emissions and remove CO2 and methane as much and as soon as possible, GHG emissions reduction and removal alone will not rescue us from the climate emergency. Continued warming from legacy emissions and ocean heat, and the lead time required to replace infrastructure will mean the transition to climate stability will not be completed for at least several decades.  

The three-pronged approach to limit global warming to well below 1°C -- direct cooling, GHG emissions reduction, and GHG removal -- will prevent catastrophic and irreversible damage to critical natural and human systems and return the Earth to an enduring state that can recreate a healthy, stable, biodiverse, and productive climate. This is the legacy we owe our children, our grandchildren, current and future generations, and all life on our planet. 

We are counting on you. It would be our pleasure to confer with you, your colleagues, and your staff. Do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, comments, or requests for further information. 

Further discussion and references for this letter are available. 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the signatories listed below, 

SIGNATORIES 

(Organization affiliation listed for identification only.) 

Australia: 

John Macdonald 

Marine Permaculturist, The Climate Foundation

Graeme Taylor, PhD

Author, "Evolution's Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World",Coordinator, BEST Futures

Robert Tulip, MA 

Director, Iron Salt Aerosol Australia Pty Ltd 

Sue Vink, PhD 

Principal Research Fellow, Environment Centres Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland

Brian von Herzen, Ph.D. 

Executive Director, Climate Foundation

 

France: 

Renaud de Richter, PhD 

Independent Researcher 

 

Germany: 

Franz Dietrich Oeste

Chemical Engineer Founder, of the ISA greenhouse gas depletion method gM-Ingenieurbüro

 

India: 

Soumitra Das, PhD,

President, Healthy Climate Initiative 

Mr. Bhaskar V. Mallimadugula 

Director, Kadambari Consultants Pvt Ltd Hyderabad, India 

Rituraj Phukan (Assam, India),

Founder, Indigenous People's Climate Justice Forum National Coordinator for Biodiversity The Climate Reality Project India 

 

Japan: 

Hiroshi Mizutani 

Ph. D. in Chemistry, Senior Research Scientist, Institute of Sociogeochemistry

 

The Netherlands: 

Drs. Hans van Hilten,

Programme Manager Energy Transition and Climate Adaptation Waddenfonds Board member, LECO (a local energy cooperation in the city of Groningen) 

Prof. Dr. Ing. Lummina G. Horlings, 

Aletta Jacobs chair in Socio-Spatial Planning Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen 

 

Switzerland: 

Oswald Petersen 

AMR - Atmospheric Methane Removal AG 

Samuel Zak, MSc 

European Lead, Climate Foundation 

 

Turkey: 

Ahmet Ağir,

Assistant Professor, Hasan Ali Yücel Education Faculty, Computer and Instructional Technology Education İstanbul University-Cerrahpaşa 

Dr. Mustafa Aykut 

Chairman, Futurists Association, Turkey Author, ‘What is left until 2040’ 

Cem Kirazoğlu, PhD. 

An adult educator and critical pedagogist İstanbul Aydın University – Education Faculty  

Fulya Sari,

PhD. Candidate in Education Policy +  Voice / Information Architect / Science in Public Places, Bogazici University 

 

United Kingdom: 

Clive Elsworth,

BSc, Scientific Consultant, Restore Our Climate, Methane Action, Co Founder, Citizens Climate Lobby UK 

Stuart Haszeldine OBE FRSE C.Geol 

Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh 

Mark Hibbert, CivEng 

Technical Director, LiveEco CIC 

Daniel Kieve, MSc 

Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG) Restore Our Climate (ROC) 

John Nissen, MA, Founder and Chair, 

Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG) Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG) 

Bru Pearce,

Managing Director, Envisionation Ltd 

Stephen Salter,

Emeritus Professor of Engineering  Design, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_ Ni8 

Peter Wadhams, ScD, Prof. Emeritus 

Dept of Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics Cambridge University 

 

United States: 

Andrew Cameron Bailey,

CEO and Founder Sacred Earth Enterprises 

Ron Baiman, PhD. 

Associate Professor of Economics, Benedictine University, Founder and leader, Chicago Political Economy Group 

Leslie Field, PhD. 

Founder and CTO, Arctic Ice Project, Stanford University, Adjunct Lecturer 

Gene Fry, PhD. 

Northeast Utilities and Massachusetts Department  of Public Utilities (ret.) 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD. 

President, Global Coral Reef Alliance, Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL, President, Biorock Technology Inc.,Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme SIDS DOCK 

Doug Grandt, BS, Industrial Engineering  

CalEPA−Air Resources Board (retired) Healthy Climate Alliance (HCA), Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG) 

Wilson Hago, PhD.,

Founder, Hago Energetics, Inc.

Nadia Soraya Kock 

Carbon Management Consultant, Point Arena, California 

Ronal W. Larson, PhD. 

Board Member, United States Biochar Initiative, Coordinator, “biochar.io” internet list 

Michael C. MacCracken, PhD. 

Chief Scientist, Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute 

Beyhan T. Maybach, PhD. 

Restoration Ecologist, Great Ecology 

Aria McKenna

Founder - Global Cooling Productions, Committee - Healthy Climate Alliance (HCA), Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG)

David Mitchell, PhD. 

Associate Research Professor, Desert Research Institute, Division of Atmospheric Sciences 

Suzanne Reed, MFS,

Founder, The Collaboration Connection 

Herb Simmens, MPAUP 

Author, ‘A Climate Vocabulary of the Future’, Founder, Planetphilia 

Barbara J. Sneath, PhD. 

Deputy Director, The MEER:ReflEction Framework 

Ron Swenson,

President, The International Institute of Sustainable Transportation 

Ye Tao, PhD. 

Director and Founder, The MEER ReflEction Framework 

Wilvan I. Van Campen 

Architect, AIA