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

Pressure on Bill Shorten over Adani with Sit-Down protest scheduled

December 9, 2018 at 2:35 pm John Englart Leave a comment

March for our future #stopAdani 8/12/2018

With Adani announcing they are proceeding with building the Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin in Queensland last week, snap protests were called in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and Cairns for Saturday 8th December that attracted thousands. In Melbourne the intersection of Flinders Street and Swanston street was occupied in a sit-down protest for over half an hour.

Stop Adani and climate action groups have called for a sit-down protest at Bill Shorten’s office in Hall street, Moonee Ponds on Wednesday 12 December at 8 AM – 11 AM (Facebook Event)

The event comes on the heels of the High School strike for climate events this last week saw thousands of students from capital cities and many regional towns staging energetic protests calling for 100 per cent renewables by 2030, and an end to all new coal and gas, and especially to stop Adani.

Adani wants to get their mine started before the Federal election to make it difficult for a Labor government to stop the project. While some Labor MPs like our Wills MP Peter Khalil have come out and opposed the mine for both economic and environmental reasons, most have not, with Labor leader Bill Shorten still sitting on the fence. This equivocation by Labor also gives hope to Adani.

This resurgence of climate activism by youth and students has been stimulated by 15 year old Greta Thundberg from Sweden who started a Fridays climate strike outside the Swedish parliament, voicing her concern about the lack of action in tackling emissions reduction in Sweden and globally. Greta recently highlighted her concerns at the United Nations climate change conference COP24 in Katowice, Poland.

The March for our future rally on Saturday made a very strong call for Bill Shorten to stop equivocation on Adani.

More legal hurdles for Adani

The Australian Conservation Foundation have launched another legal case arguing that the Federal Government and Environment Minister Melissa Price failed in her duty to apply the water trigger to the Adani pipeline plan.

ACF Chief Executive Officer Kelly O’Shanassy said: “ACF is taking the Federal Government to court over its flawed process for assessing Adani’s plan for a water-guzzling pipeline to service its climate-wrecking coal mine.

“Water is precious on our dry continent, yet Adani wants to take billions of litres of river water every year, nearly as much as all local farmers combined. The water trigger requires the Federal Government to comprehensively assess all large coal mines and coal seam gas developments to determine if they will have a significant impact on our water.

“Our climate is breaking down and Queensland is in the grip of drought. This is not the time to be reckless with our water.”

Existential Risk for civilisation

We are in a climate emergency and facing an existential risk to human civilisation if we do not rapidly reduce climate emissions and phaseout coal. This was made abundantly clear by respected naturalist David Attenborough at the start of the UN climate change conference in Poland.

“Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate Change. If we don’t take action the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.” Attenborough told the opening plenary of the conference.

So Bill Shorten and the Labor Party need to step up on climate action. Their present policy is a positive start but it needs to be ramped up based on the most recent science in particular the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) most recent report on the differences of impact impacts between 1.5C and 2C of global warming. Part of this needs to be a definite policy to stop the Adani coal mine.

Climate action was an important consideration for people in the Victorian state election that re-elected the Dan Andrews Labor government, it will also feature as important in the next Federal election due to occurr sometime in the next 6 months.

Bill Shorten and the Labor Party need to come on board.

Community pressure is building for Labor to commit to stop Adani.

Entry filed under: Adani, Climate Emergency, Event, Politician education, rallies & protests. Tags: Adani, Bill Shorten, coal, Labor.