Help Create a Just Australian Response to Climate Change.

Thursday May 8 2008, 7-9 pm

Sydney Mechanics Schools of Arts

280 Pitt St, Sydney

RSVP & enquiries:

Dot Green (03) 5428 5384

dot.green@foe.org.au

Discussion led by Damien Lawson, adviser to Greens Senator Kerry Nettle, co-founder of climate think tank Carbon Equity and incoming national Climate Justice campaigner with Friends of the Earth.

*       Climate Refugees

*       The impact of carbon trading on the Global South

*       The danger of bio-fuels

* The vision and strategic priorities of the Climate Justice Campaign

We are facing a climate emergency and the need for action is urgent.  

Climate change in now firmly on Australia’s agenda.  But there are key voices and issues missing from the debate - in particular, the millions of people in the global south already directly affected by global warming and the impact of flawed solutions.

• People in the Pacific and Bangladesh are being evacuated because of rising sea levels and salt contamination of their water and crops

• Rainforests in Indonesia and Brazil are being razed and indigenous people displaced to plant crops for bio-fuel

• Increasing demand for bio-fuel is contributing to surging grain prices and food insecurity in the world’s poorest countries.

Foe’s Climate Justice Campaign plays a unique role in building awareness and responsibility for the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations, and advocating solutions that help, not hurt, the poor.

The meeting will include an invitation to fund the Climate Justice Campaign.  You can be at the frontline of addressing climate change by giving your money to support this important and ground-breaking work. We appreciate all donations and, because urgent action is required, we are particularly seeking leadership funding ($5,000 to $20,000) to help create a just Australian response to climate change.

Please join us on Thursday May 8 2008, 7-9pm (supper included)

Sydney Mechanics Schools of Arts

280 Pitt St, Sydney

RSVP & enquiries to Dot Green dot.green@foe.org.au, (03) 5428 5384

For more information on the campaign see www.foe.org.au/climate-justice

Read on to hear the voices of affected people

“We are frustrated, and we are angry at the same time. We are victims of something that we are not responsible for. We believe that these islands are ours, and that our future generations should not go away from these islands. I think it’s about time these industrialized countries realised that these island countries in the Pacific are taking the toll. We’re bearing the brunt of all these gas emissions. Millions and millions of dollars are spent on wars all over the world. Can they save people like ourselves?”

Bernard Galie, resident of Carteret Islands

For most people in the West, climate change threatens their lifestyles. For the people of Bangladesh, climate change threatens their very lives.

Sabihuddin Ahmed, UK High Commissioner for Bangladesh

“We want food sovereignty, not biofuels… While Europeans maintain their lifestyle based on automobile culture, the population of Southern countries will have less and less land for food crops … We are therefore appealing to the governments and people of the European Union countries to seek solutions that do not worsen the already dramatic social and environmental situation of the peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa.”

Declaration by five large Latin American NGO networks, January 2006

“This is the sacred area of our ancestral leaders. This used to be covered by primary forest. From here to there, and all around, there was only thick forest with big trees, trunks as thick as barrels. This place was called ‘rimba batu bernyani’ – (the forest of the singing rocks) - this has been handed down from generation to generation. Now there are no big trees anymore, it is all surrounded by oil palms”

(Indigenous leader – Sumatra, from ‘Losing Ground: The human impacts of palm oil expansion’)