Three hundred climate advocates from across the country participated in their national climate summit in Melbourne from 9 to 10 April 2011.
Delegates to the summit represented a range of climate groups from across Australia.
Summit Communique
The 2011 Summit media release: Australia’s Climate Action Summit calls for raised ambition appears below:
Three hundred grassroots climate activists representing over 100 community climate action groups around Australia have voiced their frustration over the failure of Australian governments to develop effective climate policy.
Participants at the Climate Action Summit in Melbourne on Saturday and Sunday called for far more ambitious emission reduction targets and policies that will deliver large and escalating emissions reductions to achieve zero net emissions in the shortest possible timeframe.
Participants declared the current proposals being developed by the federal government’s Multi-Party Climate Change Committee for an interim carbon tax and subsequent emissions trading scheme as inadequate.
They called for a comprehensive national climate policy framework that will deliver emissions reductions consistent with the science of climate change to avoid catastrophic irreversible global warming, as is predicted by experts if urgent emissions reductions do not occur within the next decade.
The Summit participants called on:
- all Australians to reject the denial of climate change science being promoted by media shock jocks, conservative politicians, those with vested interests and fraudulent ‘experts’;
- the Australian Government to: commit to developing climate policy that is consistent with the science of climate change; put in place mechanisms that ensure a rapid transition to a zero emissions economy; and protect and restore carbon sinks and begin work to draw down Australia’s share of excess CO2 in the atmosphere;
- all Australian governments to work together to develop integrated, complementary and effective climate policies.
The participants of the 2011 Climate Action Summit agreed that:
- current climate policy options in Australia are inadequate and bear little relationship to actions demanded by the science of climate change;
- recent extreme weather events demonstrate that climate change is happening much faster that has been predicted, and is happening now;
- the failure of the current federal Opposition to develop evidence based and credible alternative climate policies is unacceptable;
- there is a need to build a people’s power movement through community organising, building of alliances and mass mobilisation; and
- this must take into account that the climate movement must combat one of the largest and powerful disinformation campaigns in human history.
Photos
- Climate Summit Melbourne 9 April 2011, Peter Campbell
See also
- Environmentalism – The Way Forward, a speech by Clive Hamilton at the Summit
- Climate change
- Australian climate action summit 2010
- Australian climate action summit 2009
- Australian climate action groups
