About the 350 Campaign
350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis - the solutions that science and justice demand.
350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis - the solutions that science and justice demand.
Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis-to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.
Our focus is on the number 350 - as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number - it's a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.
A Crucial Year
To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison. 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year. This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn't meet the severity of the climate crisis - it doesn't pass the 350 test.
In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we're harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009.
We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic places around the world - from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community - and clear message to world leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.
If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the global transformation we so desperately need.
History
350.org was founded by U.S. author Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public, and a team of university friends.
Together, they ran a campaign in 2007 called Step It Up that organized over 2,000 rallies at iconic places in all 50 states. These creative actions - from skiers descending a melting glacier to divers hosting an underwater action - helped convince many political leaders, including then Senator Barack Obama, to adopt our common call to action: cutting carbon 80% by 2050.
Now, 350.org is building on Step It Up's model of creative activism and making it global.
Copenhagen
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental treaty that was drafted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and spearheaded international efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.
As part of the Convention, the signatory countries have been hosting a series of conferences, the most famous of which was the Kyoto Conference (COP-3), in December 1997, which produced the Kyoto Protocol to commit signatories to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below the level produced in 1990.
The next Conference (COP-15) will take place this December 7-19, 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The goal of this conference is to produce an aggressive new agreement to take effect in 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
The goal of the 350 campaign is to persuade world leaders attending the Copenhagen Conference to accept the science on climate change and commit to reducing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the current level of 390 parts per million to the maximum safe threshold of 350 parts per million.