Westminster Palace home of the British Parliament

It’s Thursday, May 2, and the U.K. just declared a climate emergency.

Here in the United States, President Trump has declared a “national emergency” over a debatable border crisis, but across the pond, the U.K. is focused on the global emergency: climate change.

On Wednesday, Parliament passed a motion declaring an “environment and climate crisis.” Though the proposal is largely symbolic (it doesn’t require the government to do anything), it’s a history-making move that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says is intended to “set off a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the globe.”

The decision to declare an emergency was prompted, at least in part, by Extinction Rebellion, a climate activist group which has been staging protests across Britain in recent weeks. Declaring a climate emergency was one of the group’s chief demands.

Not one to miss an opportunity to shame the Paris agreement-shirking United States, Corbyn directly rebuked Trump in his statement. “We pledge to work as closely as possible with countries that are serious about ending the climate catastrophe […]