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We must increase Australia's climate target!
The Albanese government has increased Australia’s ambition on climate change, increasing the previous Coalition government’s embarrassing target of 26-28% emissions reduction on 2005 levels by 2030 to a target of 43% by 2030.
However, the latest climate science makes it clear that if we are to have a hope of holding global warming well below 2°C, the deepest emissions cuts need to be made before 2030. Australia must do its part within the international community, as a wealthy country and large exporter of fossil fuels, to meet this challenge.
At the UN-sponsored COP27 climate talks to be held in November 2022, countries will be asked to declare their updated plans to cut emissions by 2030. This is Australia’s chance to show that it is acting on the climate crisis with the seriousness that the latest science and evidence of already devastating impacts demand.
Please send an email to the Albanese Government, calling on the Australian government to lift its ambition on climate change.
Solidarity Sign Up
With the escalating effects of climate change and ecosystem collapse, alongside increasing repression of public protest, we need to know we are not alone in the actions we take to build a better world.
This is a register to help connect people in showing up in solidarity for people taking action on climate, the environment and for Country.
For workers
Due to years of stripping back workers rights to the benefit of employers, the ability for workers to take action for a just transition, climate action or for the environment is extremely narrow. Workers shouldn’t be at the point of suffering the effects of climate change, ecosystem collapse, or an unmanaged just transition before they can fight for better jobs and a livable world.
For Country
Colonisation has been, and continues to be, a project of taking something for nothing. This has been disastrous for the environment, climate, and Aboriginal people. Country for Aboriginal people is more than just land, it’s spirituality, connection, culture, and ancestry. The climate crisis is a direct consequence of colonisation and the exploitative, extractive systems it enables. To fight ecosystem collapse it is essential that First Nations people have sovereignty and cultural caretaker rights restored to help heal Country and our climate.
For the environment
We rely on the natural world for all of our basic needs - water, air, and food. When we allow ecosystems to collapse we harm ourselves. For example trees draw carbon, protect our water catchments, and safeguard biodiversity needed for crop pollination. We must stand with those taking action to protect the environment, as they stand in solidarity with all beings - both plant and animal.
Tell the Albanese government: its time for a national Energy Transition Authority!
Australia has traditionally relied on coal fired power stations to meet its energy needs. This is now rapidly changing, as renewable energy and storage becomes cheaper and older coal fired power stations become ever more expensive to run and less reliable.
Friends of the Earth has long argued for the need for a national Just Transition Authority
Now, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has issued a call for the Albanese government to establish an independent and properly resourced national Energy Transition Authority to manage an orderly and fair transition process for affected workers – including support for redeployment, skills and training, and secure job opportunities.
Friends of the Earth supports this call and encourages our members and supporters to sign the letter below, which will go to the prime minister Anthony Albanese.
You can find details on the ACTU proposal in their Secure Jobs for a Safer Climate report.
SIGN NOW: Ask the government to build a fossil gas and oil rig recycling centre. Petition
Sitting off Australia's coast are scores of rusting fossil gas and oil rigs, hundreds of wells and thousands of kilometres of pipeline, all of which need to be retired over coming years.
In addition, 2600 platforms, amounting to 7.5 million tonnes of steel, will need to be decommissioned across the Indo-Pacific region over the next decade.
Help us to urge the Federal Government to seize this opportunity to transform offshore gas and oil rig decommissioning in Australia by forming a new industry that will create thousands of direct and indirect jobs.
The growing number of redundant gas and oil assets off the WA coast would be towed or shipped to a large onshore facility to be cleaned and scrapped, with the steel and other products recycled.
The new facility would be paid for by an extension to the existing offshore decommissioning levy, and any profits would be granted to the area’s Traditional Owners, the Kariyarra people.
An ARRC, funded by this federal, industry-wide levy, would ensure oil and gas firms now enjoying extraordinary financial windfalls would pay, themselves, for the clean-up of drilling sites, rather than writing decommissioning off on tax, at the expense of the Australian population as happens now.
#RecycleTheRigs
Jeff Waters
Offshore Gas Campaigner
