Stop Funding Politicians Delaying Bold Climate Action Among Demands 1,100 Google Workers Just Sent to Top Exec

More than 1,100 Google employees on Monday demanded the company release a concrete action plan for confronting the climate crisis.

As Amazon and Microsoft workers did earlier this year, Google Workers for Action on Climate demanded in their letter to CFO Ruth Porat that the company address the "urgency of the global climate crisis" by adopting policies that will reduce harm on the communities Google serves, including many on the frontlines of the crisis.

"We...in accordance with the gravity and urgency of the global climate crisis and its disproportionate harm to marginalized people, call on Google to commit to and release a company-wide climate plan," reads the letter, which was posted on Medium.

The workers demand the following:

1. Zero emissions by 2030.
2. Zero contracts to enable or accelerate the extraction of fossil fuels.
3. Zero funding for climate-denying or -delaying think tanks, lobbyists, and politicians.
4. Zero collaboration with entities enabling the incarceration, surveillance, displacement, or oppression of refugees or frontline communities.

In 2018, according to Google's environmental report, the company released 4.9 million tons of greenhouse gases.

The employees included links to evidence that Google, which has as its motto "do the right thing," is complicit in the climate crisis. The company has contracted with oil companies to provide them with automation and AI services and spending $25,000 to co-sponsor a conference last winter which included climate-deniers.

"Google is a global company with billions of users across the world, many of whom are already bearing the brunt of climate disaster...As Google workers, we are committed to putting our users first, and Google must do the same."
--Google Workers for Action on Climate

Google also made "substantial" donations to politicians and think tanks who deny that human activity is contributing to the climate crisis or delay climate action, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the group that helped convince President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

"Google is a global company with billions of users across the world, many of whom are already bearing the brunt of climate disaster," the employees wrote. "Google's code of conduct requires respect for users and for opportunities. As Google workers, we are committed to putting our users first, and Google must do the same."

The employees sent the letter just weeks after more than one hundred parents and their babies blocked the entrance to Google's London offices to demand the company stop funding climate change deniers.

In September, after receiving a similar letter from his employees, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos pledged that his company would become carbon-neutral by 2040 and will run on 80 percent renewable energy by 2024.

While they stated clearly Bezos' plan was not nearly enough, Amazon workers at the time celebrated the success of their pressure campaign.

Last year, Google announced it was ending a contract with a Pentagon military drone project after about 4,000 employees condemned the partnership and a dozen workers resigned from the company in protest.