Slovak parliament does not declare state of climate crisis yet

On Wednesday, parliament adopted a resolution concerning a climate petition which declares that the problem of climate change is a serious one, underlines the need to implement the Paris Climate Agreement and recommends the government to usher in several ecological measures. An initiative called 'Climate Needs You' perceives the results of the House deliberation on the climate petition as another step forward in the fight against climate change, although it is not really happy with the overall result. According to its representatives, the approved resolution reflects only a minimum of the demands, which have been supported by 127,000 petition signatories. One of the demands was that parliament declare the state of climate crisis, which it did not. The Environment Ministry on Wednesday called climate change the biggest challenge of the 21st century. Environment Minister Ján Budaj (OĽaNO) at the same time announced that Parliament would return to the issue in six months and declare a state of climate crisis. Nevertheless, he admitted that it was a "big step forward" to approve the afore-mentioned resolution, which calls for the government to take into account the climate crisis in drawing up laws.