Global movement 350.org on Thursday urged nations to seize the “pivotal moment” at hand and ready swift plans to ditch fossil fuels in order to avert climate catastrophe and do right by frontline communities.

The climate group’s call is directed at nations heading to the U.N. Climate Change Conference known as COP 25, which begins Monday in Madrid.

“The only way for this process to succeed is to acknowledge, as science dictates, that it is time to put a discussion of fossil fuels front and center.”
—May Boeve, 350.orgInformation out just this week from the United Nations puts a megaphone to the call. The World Meteorological Organization said Monday that levels of key greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached record highs in 2018. On Tuesday, the U.N. Environmental Program warned that global temperatures could be on track to rise as much as 3.2°C by the end of the century, a projection that the body said underscored the “need for rapid and transformational action.”

And, last week a U.N.-led report found that global governments’ projected levels of coal, oil, and gas production would push the planet over the temperature rise called for in the Paris climate accord— an agreement from which President Donald Trump began formally withdrawing this month. 

Such dire predictions have driven millions of young climate activists to protest worldwide recently to demand their governments address the crisis, with a fourth global climate strike set to kick off Friday to sustain the message.

The threat of the climate crisis and the crescendo of demands for swift and bold action, said 350, should serve as a clarion call to action for delegates when they gather next week in the Spanish capital.