From our nation’s capital to our nation’s most famous building, we’ve put climate change on the agenda
Posted on 23. Oct, 2009 by Cara Bevington in Australia
This morning, at 4:30am, I coaxed myself bleary eyed out of bed with the promise of strong coffee, stumbled around my house, and before I knew it was on the long and rather straight road from Sydney to Canberra.
I was heading to our nation’s capital with some of my fellow youth climate activists for a day long meeting with the Department of Climate Change, and our Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong about, you guessed it, all things climate.
The meeting was for a broad group of Australian youth who are tracking and engaging with the UN climate negotiations to hear, from the government’s perspective, how things are tracking as we tick down to Copenhagen and to share our concerns.
Youth meeting with Minister Wong and Department of Climate Change (that's me on the far left!)
It was an impressive program and seeing the work laid out by the Department made me fully appreciate just how far they have come since their inception just two years ago! But, there was nothing I heard today that made me think, phew, it’s ok, they’ve got our back.
While we’ve seen other countries, like the European Union ratchet up their level of ambition with the recent announcement of a 2050 target of a 95% emission reduction target (in the context of a global deal), Australia continues to lack the level of ambitious thinking and strong leadership that not just the science, but the youth of Australia demand. (Check my brief overview of some of the policy areas we covered at the end of this blog.)
There has been A LOT of talk about a so called lack of political will in the climate debate: read politicians don’t think taking strong action on climate change is palatable to the people who vote them in. So, despite the science, they just don’t ‘have the space’ to make the needed commitments.
Well, I must say, I disagree.
Tomorrow tens of thousands of people, from more than 170 countries will come together to create over 4, 000 events.
Together we will show world leaders the will they have been looking for.
Saturday 24 October will go down in history as the people of the world declare their support for the most important number – 350.
High in the Andes in Bolivia, Indigenous Aymara shamans will hold a ceremony where Chacaltaya, the first South American glacier to completely disappear, vanished earlier this year. 350 cyclists will ride through the streets of Beijing to an eco-hip hop event that will be broadcast around the world. Just a week after President Nasheed of the Maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting calling for world leaders to commit to 350, hundreds of Maldivian citizens will hold a 24 hour underwater relay. Right across the globe, our international team of 12 trackers will each be at events in our own countries.
Here in Sydney I will be joining with hundreds of Australians on the steps of the Opera House to create one of the global ‘3’s which will later join a ‘5’ and ‘0’ created in other country’s to spell out our message. If you’re there, come say hi, I’ll be the one with 350 painted on my face!
If you’re not a Sydney-sider, no doubt there is an event near you. Check out this extensive and exciting list.
Tomorrow morning I am sure I wont need the caffeine hit I did at 4:30am this morning, I will be alive with the buzz of the day!
Tomorrow the world will show our leaders that across the globe, we are here, we are informed, and we want strong action NOW!
Tomorrow we will show them that we will accept nothing less than a fair, ambitious and binding global climate agreement in Copenhagen.
See you there. And then, make sure you do everything you possibly can to ensure your MP knows that you were there.
Cara
And for the policy die-hards, a brief overview of some of the key elements out of today’s Departmental and Ministerial meeting.
Ambition of 2020 reduction targets: while the Government have said that they will reduce emissions by -5% no matter what, they will only reduce emissions by -25% (which is waaay below what science demands) in the context of a global deal.
Finance: Australia has stated numerous times, that they recognise that finance is a central issue to the UN climate talks, but they continue to remain tight lipped about how much they think is needed, where is should come from, and how it should be spent.
With such little time to go, and finance being a clear blockage in the talks, this silence needs to be broken. Lots of other countries (including Mexico, Norway, Tuvalu, the UK, EU and USA) have put proposals on the table, none provide a magic answer but at least they give us something to work with. It’s time for Australian to weigh in on this vital issue.
Adaptation (helping developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change they are already facing): This is one area that the Australian delegation feel is progressing quite well, and I largely agree with them.
There continues to be a good recognition of the need for the world’s most vulnerable countries and peoples to be prioritised. However, until there is a clear signal about financing, this work can never be realised. Adaptation, no matter how well planned, will never be free.
Legal form (or architecture) of the global climate agreement: The Australian government have put forward a proposal that they are calling the ‘schedules approach’. Basically it’s a table with a number of rows and columns which is designed to capture the actions that different countries are taking on climate change (eg. Their emission reduction target and the actions they will take to reach it).
The approach is designed to be flexible - that is capture the varying activities from a variety of countries; durable – one single tool which will help the world to see who is doing what and will be able to be used continuously over coming years as it provides room for countries to increase their ambition; and to provide certainty - that is, we will be able to see what kind of global outcome it will deliver and in theory it will be able to provide greater market certainty.
The approach is designed to be able to bring countries who have different responsibilities and capabilities like South Africa and Australia, China and the US, into the one agreement without meaning that they all have to do the same kind of actions. Australia and the US would take on economy wide binding targets, and South Africa and China would be expected to take on nationally tailored mitigation actions.
There are a lot of elements of this that just make good sense, and I do applaud the Australian government for putting a significant amount of work into an area that had otherwise been left largely out in the cold in the ‘too hard basket.’ But, I do worry that while this is a good tool, it is not enough to up the political will of stronger action, nor will it provide penalties on developed countries who fail to deliver on what they have promised.
So, as you can see it’s not all bad. But, what we have right now is not the planet saving deal we are demanding. Lots more work to do. Maybe I will need that coffee after all.