Climate Action Merribek: people in Brunswick, Coburg, Fawkner and Glenroy wanting action on climate change

Join the National Day of Climate Action 17 November

November 13, 2013 at 6:36 pm John Englart Leave a comment

Update: Well done to everyone that attended the 30,000 strong rally (Estimated by the Age reporter) in Melbourne, indeed the 60,000+ people around Australia. CAM member John Englart wrote up a report of the rally for his climate blog, which also provides a wonderful summary of events around Australia. Also see the Getup media summary page.

Come and join the members of Climate Action Moreland and thousands of others at the National Day of Climate Action at 11am Sunday 17 November, Treasury Gardens Melbourne.

Come along to stand in solidarity with Yeb Sano, the Filipino lead climate negotiator at the UN climate Conference in Warsaw, presently on hunger strike in solidarity with the people of the Philippines suffering the devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan, clearly linked to climate change.

Or stand in support of the people of the pacific island nations under threat from rising seas. Or the residents of the Blue Mountains who so recently faced raging bushfires so unusually early in the season.

It has been the hottest summer on record, the hottest September and October on record, the hottest 12 month period on record according to the Climate Council latest report on Off the Charts: Record breaking October heat & climate change

Today the Abbott Government introduced the legislation to repeal all the work of the previous Labor Government, not only on carbon pricing but also the positive legislation on clean renewable energy.

Our Federal MP for Wills, Kelvin Thomson, stood today with the Climate Guardian Angels in Canberra in opposition to the repeal of the carbon price.

Many nations, including the USA and China, are ramping up action to reduce carbon emissions through carbon taxes, emission trading schemes and even regulatory action. The Federal Government is intent on winding back the small degree of positive action we have in place.

The Climate Change Authority recommended in a draft report recently that our small emissions reduction target of 5 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020 should be lifted to 15 to 25 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020 due to increasing action by a range of other nations and trading partners. Scientists have told us since at least the Bali roadmap in 2007 we should be reducing emissions by 25 to 40 percent on 1990 levels by 2020. Read the Climate Council summary of this draft report.

But the Abbott Government, despite numerous assurances while in opposition of it’s support for the target range commitment of 5 to 25 per cent target by 2020 based upon comparable action by other nations, have now even dropped that pretense of bipartisan support.

All we get now is $3.2 billion as budgeted for emission reduction, mostly to be spent via a reverse auction, with no guarantee we will even achieve the 5 per cent base emissions reduction target. Tom Arup in the Sydney Morning Herald sums up: Tony Abbott stifling Australia’s climate change ambitions

This is a major reversal to ongoing commitments he gave as opposition leader, according to the Climate Institute, who have put together a comprehensive list of assurances (PDF), all now broken.

Already Australia has earned a dubious Fossil of the Day Award at the Warsaw Climate talks, conferred by civil society organisations

The Abbott Government decided not to have ministerial representation at the United Nations climate negotiations in Warsaw. Australia often plays a pivotal role in these negotiations as part of the Umbrella group, and often has a diplomatic importance above our economic status as a middle level power.

“If you are not at the table, you are probably on the menu,” said Erwin Jackson of The Climate Institute. Australia Won’t be missed from these negotiations, which is a missed opportunity and will result in lowering our influence diplomatically on a global level, not only on climate but also on other issues.

John Howard has now stated that the only reason he supported an Emissions Trading Scheme going into the 2007 Federal Election was political expediency in neutralising the issue.

So what we need to do is make repeal of the Australian carbon price an expensive political proposition that will cost Tony Abbott dearly at the next election if not earlier. Malcolm Turnbull is still waiting in the wings and knows Tony Abbott’s climate policy is ‘bullshit’, if anyone had any doubts.

See you on Sunday and hope you can get involved in the grassroots climate action movement.

John Englart
Climate Action Moreland member

Entry filed under: Event, news, rallies & protests. Tags: Climate Action Moreland, climate change, Climate Council, National Day of Climate Action, Tony Abbott.