Arresting climate change
The Camp for Climate Action, due to kick off in Newcastle this week, signals that for many of us who have been speaking out on the dangers of runaway climate change over the past decade, the time for more radical action has arrived.
In the past couple of years the threat of rising sea levels and higher temperatures has come to dominate political and economic issues here and around the world. But as the debate has intensified there has been a consistent failure of state and federal leaders from the Coalition and Labor parties to deal with the main climate change culprit in Australia – coal.
That is why hundreds of people will join the six day Climate Camp in Newcastle, home to the world's largest coal port, and why some of the planned activities will involve people being arrested.
Peaceful non-violent arrestable action has a long and proud history in Australia. The big social, environmental and industrial movements that have reshaped our society at times involved people breaking the law.
Saving the Franklin River, making workplaces safer, winning women's rights and many other significant campaigns saw large numbers of people arrested. At the time these causes and those who took part in the associated arrestable actions were abused and ridiculed.
These days there is widespread recognition that those who protested and were arrested did the right thing and their achievements brought benefits to our wider community.
Over time a radical position can evolve into mainstream government policy.
But right now in the battle to rein in the coal industry we do not have time on our side. Australian decision makers will not readily adopt the Climate Camp's slogan of Say No more to coal and Yes to clean energy solutions!
Until that shift occurs there clearly is a need for creative, diverse actions to challenge the coal industry and their major party backers. Their argument that it is possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to use coal is falling apart.
Premier Morris Iemma has agreed to stabilise carbon pollution at 2000 levels by 2025. We are already near those levels so when you factor in population growth and associated transport and agriculture emissions it becomes apparent that it is only by reducing coal fired power that this target can be met.
The burning and mining contributes about 40 per cent of this state's greenhouse gas emissions.
But winning support for the transition to a low carbon economy is probably the toughest challenge we face, as the coal industry is one of the most effective political lobby groups in this country. For centuries successive Labor and conservative governments have delivered for the mining giants in granting exploration rights, approving new leases and providing infrastructure to assist in the mining and transport of coal.
With their billions of dollars in profits mining giants like BHP Billiton, Peabody, Rio Tinto and Xstrata are used to getting their way with governments.
Their influence was again on show last week when Professor Ross Garnaut in his Climate Change Review Draft Report failed to address the urgent need to reduce our reliance on coal by adopting energy efficiency measures and switching to renewables.
He relied on the clean coal myth to justify what effectively is a business as usual approach.
This unproven technology is being used by coal companies to justify opening new coal mines and expanding coal exports.
With the role of the coal industry again sidelined in the latest debate on climate change in response to the Garnaut Report we should not be surprised that people are turning to arrestable actions to highlight the urgent need for a planned transition away from a coal dependent economy.
