Yarra Climate Action Now!

STOP PRESS: Update 2 December - The CPRS has been voted down in the Senate - However the Rudd Government will try to get it through again next year - so these criticisms stand.

What else is there to say?

About one year since Kevin Rudd announced his 5% target, it seems enough Liberals will vote for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) in the coming days for it to become law.

A lot has been written by scientists, economists, journalists, environmentalists, health professionals, religious leaders, development workers, politicians and ourselves, as to why the CPRS is inadequate and deeply unjust, however, the only people that Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong and the Liberal Party listened to were the fossil fuel lobby.

Let's not mince words here, the CPRS is an abomination. It will not reduce Australia's emissions due to the unlimited import of dodgy permits and offsets from overseas. Even if it did, it would reduce emissions to such inadequate levels that if they were adopted by all the developed countries we would almost guarantee catastrophic, runaway climate change.

Worst of all it makes rich the very people who should be feeling the pinch of a carbon price. Billions of taxpayer dollars will be handed over to coal miners and coal burners - those that pollute the most get the most money.

With the deal that the Labor and Liberal Parties made, compensation for the big polluters will go up even more, while $910 million will be taken away from household compensation, that is, money for poor households to cope with rising prices caused by the scheme, to be given to the shareholders of companies like TRUenergy and International Power Hazelwood.

We will see prices for many of our goods and services increase under this scheme, with no subsequent emissions reductions (modelling by the Australian Treasury showed that under the scheme as it stood before the negotiations made it even worse, Australia's emissions wouldn't drop below 1990 levels until 2035, and that was after it was assumed that clean coal was invented in 2033).

What has happened is a complete corporate takeover of our two major political parties. The hypocrisy of the Labor Party, which talks about the importance of acting on climate change, while putting forward a scheme that does nothing, is extremely saddening and frustrating. They have put the interests of large foreign fossil fuel corporations before the interests of every existing and future man, woman and child on this Earth. They have broken their election promise to take climate change seriously.

The only amusing sideshow in this whole saga has been the extent to which the Liberal Party has torn itself apart, with the climate change hypocrites and the climate change deniers fighting over their support for a scheme that locks in business as usual anyway.

Every single politician that has been involved in the development of this CPRS should forever be condemned. They do not deserve to represent us in parliament. We hope the Australian public is not fooled by Rudd's spin and punishes the Labor and Liberal Parties for this betrayal, and the scheme is repealed in the future, to be replaced by policies that will take action to the extent the climate science demands.

To read the speech of the only politician that's making any sense in all this, click here.

An absolutely classic rant by Crikey's Bernard Keane.

Welcome back to Parliament for the final time this year. Two more weeks of this stuff and then we’re finished for a summer that already feels like it’s been going a month. That’s assuming Anthony Albanese doesn’t keep his colleagues confined here at the end of next week, or even brings them back for another spell in December.

Wouldn’t want all those end-of-year “let’s all be best mates” speeches to get in the way of proper legislative business eh?

The job of a political journalist  — not of course that I would know, since according to the national broadsheet I’m not a “real journalist”, and strangely proud of it  — is somewhere between theatre critic and sports commentator. The main tasks of sports commentators are to tell you who’s winning and pretend something exciting is happening when it isn’t. That’s where it is closest to political journalism. Media coverage of politics is always about who’s winning and who’s losing, naturally, but the trivial and meaningless are routinely built up into events of monumental importance simply for the sake of pretending something significant is happening.

But you also need to appraise the performances of the principal actors (not to mention the ambitious walk-on players), assessing the conviction or otherwise with which they utter their lines, paying close attention to the effect not on professional observers such as oneself, who to use the immortal phrase “don’t know jack”, but the hoi polloi in the cheap seats at the back, from which vantage point scenery-chewing hammery or mindless repetition may look like the stuff of the Great Tragedians.

Once in a while, we’re reminded that this isn’t a show or a game that we’re watching. This morning the Prime Minister made an apology to the “Forgotten Generation” in the Great Hall in Parliament House. He was followed by Malcolm Turnbull. Both made heart-felt and emotional speeches, without political polish, the sort of speeches we can point to when people lament the lack of Australian political oratory. The tears and smiles and applause of those present who as children were abused in institutional care show how significant the actions of government can be, even in simply acknowledging those whose pain was ignored for so long.

This fortnight also sees some sort of climax in the emissions trading debate, another issue of more-than-usual gravity.

I don’t know about you (no, really, I don’t) but I’m utterly over the CPRS debate. It’s been a long road since early last year, when Penny Wong blithely called the Garnaut Review “one input” into the Government’s consideration, in effect spilling the beans, or giving the game away, or belling the cat, or whatever cliché takes your fancy. I’m now sick of emissions trading. Sick of Wong’s tedious droning, of Kevin Rudd’s sanctimony, of the Coalition climate denialists who make a virtue out of their own intellectual and emotional disabilities.

I’m sick of Barnaby Joyce and the National Party, so plum-stupid that they can’t even understand when the National Farmers’ Federation tells them it’d be a good idea to back the scheme. I’m sick of the rentseekers, the whingers, the sooks and Hookes, who preach the virtues of the market when it suits them but whose natural posture is of a hand stuck out, demanding assistance, and assistance in ever greater quantities, like blackmailers who just keep coming back for more.

to continue reading click here.

I arrive early in the morning and help them set up their marquee on the lawn in front of Parliament House in Canberra. They are not in their usual position today because the lawn will be used to host a barbecue for the former wards of the state after their official apology from the Federal Government and the last thing they want is to be able to smell the food.

All three of the people I’m visiting, Paul, Marcella and Michael are in good spirits even though they have eaten nothing and have drunk only water for the last nine days. As we settle down under their marquee, I get the official business out of the way by letting them know that I am here not only representing myself, but my local climate action group, Yarra Climate Action Now, and that they have our admiration, respect and gratitude.

These three people on hunger strike outside Parliament House are one component of Climate Justice Fast – an international hunger strike for climate justice and for urgent and science-based actions to prevent catastrophic global warming. There are around 100 people around the world taking part in fasts of varying length as part of this action, with numbers growing day by day. Eight of these people, including Paul and Michael here in Canberra are doing the “full” fast, which is indefinite and will probably go until after the Copenhagen negotiations finish – a total of six weeks without food!

The key messages of the fast are that in line with the most robust and up to date climate science, world leaders need to agree to cut emissions and draw-down carbon from the atmosphere in order to get below 350 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (currently at around 387ppm and the Rudd Government target is a suicidal 450ppm), and that the rich world must pay the poor world US$160 billion per year to help them cut emissions and adapt to the impacts already being felt.

Paul, 29, from Melbourne and the main organiser of the huger strike said, “We feel that it is our duty to do everything possible to prevent the world’s poorest people and our very own children from suffering at the hands of a problem which they did not create.”

Marcella, 31 and also from Melbourne adds, “we may be suffering by not eating. However, our suffering is voluntary. The victims of the Victorian bushfires and heatwaves last summer died because of the terrible conditions caused in part by our climate changing. Climate change is already causing immense suffering and we can’t stand by and let it get worse.”

We lie under the marquee, it is a 36 degree day and it’s getting hot. Every now and then someone drops in to say hello and have a chat, most are very supportive and Marcella invites them to write in their guest book. At times the conversation is so normal that I forget the immense effort and sacrifice these three people are making. When I remember that they haven’t eaten for almost ten days it feels a little surreal.

I chat to Michael, from Sydney and 61 years old, about renewable energy and carbon sequestration. We eventually get onto the topic of his fast. He tells me that the doctors who examine them regularly say he will most likely end up in hospital. He doesn’t seem too worried about this. For him, the fast is a way to show the Australian public how urgent and serious the climate crisis is. It is also about morality. “We are using our own bodies to expose the moral bankruptcy of our leaders”, he says.

The day ends on an exciting note. The Run for a Safe Climate is passing through Canberra today. They are about half-way through their run from Cooktown to Melbourne via Adelaide, and the 25 runners have run around 20km in the searing heat. I watch as the fasters and the runners, made up of police officers, fire fighters, SES workers and paramedics, chat – the parallels between their actions become obvious as they talk about their experiences.

There are several politicians there to welcome the runners. After the official welcome Paul and Marcella have a chat with Greens Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne. There is mutual admiration amongst all concerned and I take great pleasure in being able to get some video footage of the chat before a policeman informs me I am not allowed to film because I’m not authorised. As soon as he leaves I pull out the camera again until stopped by another policeman.

Marcella tries to approach Senator Penny Wong, but she makes a run for it as soon as she sees her “Climate Justice Fast!” t-shirt. I wonder out loud why she even bothers to turn up at climate change events considering how woefully her government is dealing with the crisis. Does she have no shame?

Late in the evening we say our goodbyes. As I have my first morsel of food for over 24 hours and get on the bus back to Melbourne the next morning, I think about them once again setting up on the Parliament House lawn and settling in for another day without food. I think about the humble manner by which they are going about their extraordinary action and I hope they are able to get the coverage for the cause that they are aiming for. I also hope they don’t feel alone and isolated in a world that can sometimes seem impervious to acts of sanity like this one.

As the bus leaves Canberra behind my mind settles on one of the entries in their guestbook, written by a year seven student who dropped in to the marquee with his mother. It said, “You are doing a good thing. I wish there were more of you”.

More videos available here.

GetUp’s ReEnergise Australia campaign has been knocking on doors in Kensington and Richmond in the federal electorate of Melbourne, talking to people about the potential for renewable energy to power Australia and create thousands of clean energy jobs. Over 1600 of the 1700 people that GetUp spoke to signed their petition, asking Lindsay Tanner, the Labor member for Melbourne to become a clean energy champion in the Federal Parliament. This is quite far from the current Rudd Government position, which includes wholehearted support for the coal industry and billions of taxpayer dollars for the big coal corporations while Australian technology and know-how, such as Solar Systems is allowed to go belly-up.

The key result from the door-knocking was this – 85% of those people who identified as Labor voters said they would consider changing their vote if the Government doesn’t act.

GetUp will be handing over their petition tomorrow (Friday) at 5.30pm at Lindsay Tanner’s office – 280 King St, Melbourne. All are invited to come along.

The people of Melbourne have sent a clear message, we want the Government to support renewable energy, not fossil fuels, or else we will vote for someone who will.

The climate change talks in Barcelona have just wound up. These are the last round of talks before the Copenhagen summit starts in four weeks.

The refusal of the developed countries like Australia to commit to the necessary reductions in global warming pollution resulted in a walk-out by the African delegation, with Kevin Rudd and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown specifically targetted for their hypocrisy. The African delegation accused Kevin Rudd of promising a lot on climate but not delivering real action.

"Tell me of any politician who delivered on his political manifesto. Was it Gordon Brown? Was it Kevin Rudd?", key African negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping said.

The Africans want the rich world to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2020 on 1990 levels, while Kevin Rudd is offering 5-25% - which would be a death sentence for millions of Africans if adopted globally.

Ironically it now seems that China, India, Brazil and Mexico are on track to reduce their emissions by 25% by 2020 on 1990 levels, according to new reasearch, which puts them well ahead of countries like Australia, the USA and Europe.

The Run for a Safe Climate starts today! 25 runners from Australia's emergency services, including police officers, firefighters, paramedics and nurses are running from Cooktown in the wet tropics down to Melbourne, via the east coast, the Murray Darling Basin and Adelaide.

The run aims to create public awareness of the climate emergency and the iconic ecosystems which are under extreme threat. It is also raising funds for Safe Climate Australia, an organisation that is putting together a transition plan for achieving a safe climate future.

Watch the inspiring video below, and join the runners on the final day of the run, 29 November as they run along the Port Phillip Bay shore to St Kilda.