More than 20 prominent Australians have called for emergency-scale action on climate change in an open letter to the new parliament, published in The Age on June 23. Signatories include business leaders, scientists, a former Australian of the Year and a Nobel Laureate.
The and associated website and petition are part of a growing campaign by a coalition of more than 20 grassroots climate action groups to pressure political leaders to step up and do what is needed to address the climate crisis.
They aim to use the alarming spike in global temperatures in February and the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef as the impetus to insist that leaders stop playing political games on climate and draw a line in the sand. They are calling on the newly elected parliament to immediately declare a climate emergency.
Climate scientist and author of Climate Code Red David Spratt said: 鈥淥ur climate is getting hotter and more extreme, with sea level rises already in the system set to inundate our coastlines.
鈥淎 hotter climate will undermine global food and water security, and challenge how and where we live and work unless we take big steps right now.
鈥淲e are out of time for slow, gradualist policy. The emergency action call is increasingly being taken up by leading scientists and responsible leaders around the world as extreme events escalate.鈥
More and more people are coming to the conclusion that the future of human civilisation and the survival of the ecosystems on which we depend now hang in the balance. We experienced the hottest year on record last year, and an alarming global temperature spike of more than 1.5掳C of warming in February.
The Great Barrier Reef and the ancient Tasmanian forests are being destroyed by global warming. It is clear that the current warming of 1掳C is not safe and is already dangerous. Warming of 2掳C would be devastating.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: 鈥淭his is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency action.鈥
Professor Stefan Rahmstorf of Potsdam University said: 鈥淲e are in a kind of climate emergency now 鈥 It is becoming more and more urgent. Time has almost run out to get emissions down. That's the real emergency.鈥
The implications of climate change have been underestimated by Liberal and Labor politicians. Declaring a climate emergency and initiating a society-wide mobilisation, unprecedented in peacetime, to make action on global warming the nation's highest-level priority, is now necessary.
Ian Dunlop, a former chair of the Australian Coal Association and former CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, said: 鈥淧olitics is broken in this country. Money has stopped the real issues being addressed.
鈥淭his is not a left or right wing political issue. This is an existential issue. If we don't get it right, we all have a very big problem. What we need is a Government of National Unity.鈥
Epidemiologist Professor Fiona Stanley said she is already measuring the health impacts of global warming: 鈥淥ur children top the list of those most likely to suffer from climate change. Their future, their health, must be our number one priority. We are doing too little, too late. As a society we need to step up."
We are out of time. Just as if we faced a large fire, flood or military threat, we now need to 鈥渢hrow everything鈥 we can at the climate problem, on a large-scale and speedily decarbonise the economy.
The climate emergency statement reads:
鈥淎t the Paris climate talks, scientists and people from low-lying island states set 1.5潞C of warming as a red line that must not be crossed.
鈥淗owever, earlier this year, the global average temperature spiked past 1.6潞C of warming.
鈥淭he bleaching of coral reefs around the world, increasing extreme weather events, the melting of large ice sheets and recent venting of methane from thawing permafrost make it abundantly clear that the earth is already too hot.
鈥淭he future of human civilisation, and the survival of the precious ecosystems on which we depend, now hang in the balance.
鈥淭here must be an immediate ban on new coal and gas developments and an emergency-speed transition to zero emissions.
鈥淲e must begin the enormous task of safely drawing down the excess greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.
鈥淲e call on the new parliament to declare a climate emergency.鈥
[You can sign to the Climate Emergency petition .]
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