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

A petition from over 800 Moreland residents has progessively been presented to Moreland council urging the Council to take it’s money out of financing fossil fuel developments.  We presented the latest round at tonight’s meeting.

Climate Action Moreland and 350.org have been engaged and fighting the good fight to clean up Moreland council’s finances this year.  We thought we’d take this opportunity to let you all know where we stand at the moment.

• Moreland Council received 498 signatures at the April Council Meeting asking for divestment of Moreland’s finances from Fossil Fuels
• At the May Council Meeting Moreland councilors approved a motion to audit council investments (term deposits mostly) to help give visibility to how ratepayer’s money is financing dirty energy projects
• At their June meeting the council modified the awarding of their financial services contract to state that if the Commonwealth bank had not divested from Fossil Fuels by the end of their initial three year term, they would not be eligible for any extensions the contract offers. The contract would be automatically re-tendered to allow banks who don’t invest in fossil fuels a shot.  To our knowledge, this is the first time an Australian local council has put a bank on notice that their fossil fuel financing is putting their continuing business relationship on the line.
• Tonight at the July Council meeting we presented another 332 signatures to council to let them know that while we welcome their engagement on the issue there’s still a way to go.

None of this would have been possible without the support in the community and the hundreds of people who have signed the petition and supported this campaign.  But there’s still plenty to do.

• The big event we have planned for August is a Community Climate Action Forum – where Climate Action Moreland and 350.org will be talking about ways that people can get involved in the grassroots efforts going on everywhere to help do things to combat climate change now.  One topic you can be assured will be covered is the effort to get council to divest from fossil fuels.  Details are below.
• We’ll keep engaging with council to figure out the logistics of cleaning up their finances – we want to help council build a plan that lets them move all their money out of dirty energy investments.
• We’ll keep getting out and engaging the community to get more people to sign up to cleaning up Moreland’s finances

Community Climate Action Forum