The Live Earth Pledge is a petition

Petition

A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....

 promulgated by the Live Earth

Live Earth

-Background:Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action...

 campaign, urging governments to adopt a variety of environmental protection

Environmental protection

Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the environment, on individual, organizational or governmental level, for the benefit of the natural environment and humans. Due to the pressures of population and our technology the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently...

 laws.

The pledge, spearheaded by Live Earth founder Al Gore

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

, consists of seven points "directly designed to put pressure on governments and on businesses, but do so by asking people around the world to help to focus that pressure". Among others signing the pledge with Gore are U.S. Speaker of the House

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...

 Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

 and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Harry Reid

Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...

, both Democrats

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 like Gore. The pledge will also be presented to Live Earth concert attendees, who will be asked to sign. According to Gore, "The climate crisis will only be stopped by an unprecedented and sustained global movement."

Objectives

1. Within the next 2 years, countries have to join an international treaty to cut global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in a short timespan.
2. The signees will try to live as carbon neutral
   Carbon neutral
   Carbon neutrality, or having a net zero carbon footprint, refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset, or buying enough carbon credits to make up the difference...
   
    as possible.
3. A moratorium has to be established on the construction of coal-burning facilities that do not have the capacity to safely trap and store the CO₂
   Carbon dioxide
   Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
   
   .
4. The signees will work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency
   Efficient energy use
   Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature...
   
    of their homes, workplaces, schools, places of worship and means of transportation.
5. Laws and policies have to be created that expand the use of renewable energy sources
   Renewable energy
   Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
   
    and reduce dependence on fossil fuel
   Fossil fuel
   Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
   
   s.
6. The signees will plant new trees and help preserve and protect forests.
7. The signees will buy from businesses and support leaders who support their commitment to solving the climate problem.

See also

• Global warming
  Global warming
  Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
  
  
• Global warming controversy
  Global warming controversy
  Global warming controversy refers to a variety of disputes, significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature, regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming...
  
  
• Politics of global warming
  Politics of global warming
  The politics of global warming have involved corporate lobbying, funding of special interest groups and public relations campaigns by the oil and coal industries which have affected policy decisions and legislation worldwide...
  
  
• Individual and political action on climate change
  Individual and political action on climate change
  Individual and political action on climate change can take many forms, most of which have the ultimate goal of limiting and/or reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, toward avoiding dangerous climate change.-Political action:...
  
  
• Carbon offset
  Carbon offset
  A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere....