Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks it’s about time we got our act together on the climate fight. During a speech at the TIME Earth Awards in Manhattan on April 23, the U.N. Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions and founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies mentioned some recent climate disasters—from the Los Angeles fires to record breaking storms in the Caribbean and the Southeast—and called the widespread destruction “results of us not paying attention.”
“This is the mistakes we’ve made for many, many years, coming back to haunt us. And unless we get our act together, it’s going to get a lot worse,” he said. “We are part of the environment. Without the environment, we are nothing.”
He noted that—though the Trump Administration has rolled back many major environmental rules and policies since taking office—it doesn’t mean the fight is over. “Most of the past two decades, leadership on climate change in the U.S. hasn’t come from Washington,” he said. “It has come from the bottom up, from cities and states, activists and grassroots groups, businesses and investors and philanthropists.”
“We’ve got to just roll up our sleeves, team up together, and get to work here,” he said. It’s a call to action he does not take lightly: The former mayor has helped close more than 300 coal-fired power plants in the U.S. and reduced New York City’s emissions by nearly 20%. And, after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, his foundation Bloomberg Philanthropies stepped up along with other funders to cover the gap.
Bloomberg said the climate fight is not a partisan one. “We have a responsibility to leave a better world for our children and grandchildren. And that’s not a Democrat or Republican idea. It’s not even an American idea,” he said. “It’s a value that stretches across political ideologies and national boundaries. And in this time when some people seem more divided than ever, it ought to be something that really unites us.”
TIME Earth Awards was presented by Official Timepiece Rolex and Galvanize Climate Solutions.