Louder. The call for an Australian climate emergency declaration has never been louder

“We will take this emergency seriously.”
~ Bill Shorten, federal Labor leader

“We will take this emergency seriously,” said opposition leader Bill Shorten just two days before the federal election and on the same day the ACT Government declared a climate emergency.

“The use of that word [emergency] follows the historic moment earlier this month, when a bipartisan UK Parliament passed a national declaration of an Environment and Climate Emergency. As The Conversation put it at the time, the move has been likened to putting the country on a “war footing”, with climate and the environment at the very centre of all government policy, rather than being on the fringe of political decisions.”

→ RenewEconomy – 16 May 2019:
Shorten declares climate “emergency” as top priority for Labor
“Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten has referred to climate change as an “emergency,” in his final formal pitch to voters ahead of Saturday’s federal election.”

→ The Guardian – 16 May 2019:
Federal election 2019: Bill Shorten says Labor will take climate ’emergency’ seriously – as it happened
“Bill Shorten declares climate ’emergency’. There is a use of a very particular word in this part of the speech. And it is very deliberate.”

“Labor leader Bill Shorten has toughened his stance on climate change, labelling it an emergency he vows he will prioritise if he becomes prime minister on Saturday.
The stronger language follows the lead of the UK parliament, which declared a climate emergency earlier this month.
It was soon followed by Ireland, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it at a Fiji summit this week as a “global emergency” requiring ambition and urgency.
Mr Shorten has been coy on whether he would make a similar declaration when previously asked.“

→ Newcastle Herald – 16 May 2019:
Shorten vows to tackle climate ’emergency’


COMMENTS

“Bill, taking the climate emergency ‘seriously’ means stopping Adani, not sitting on the fence. It means phasing out coal, not saying it’s here for the foreseeable future. And it means keeping fossil fuels in the ground, not lighting the fuse on the Beetaloo gas basin climate bomb. I hope Scott Morrison’s out of a job on Sunday but Bill Shorten hasn’t twigged that in an emergency, rule number one is not to pour more petrol on the fire.”
~ Adam Bandt, the Greens

“If we fail to act on climate chaos at this point in our history then Australians will be hostage to external and increasingly unpredictable events of an order of magnitude and seriousness of threat most reasonably compared to war. I’m not comfortable with the military analogy but it is applicable for the simple fact that it is the closest example we have for an incoming government to reference. Climate chaos washes across borders, it is on a world scale. Our national interest is at stake, as is our relations with other nation states.”
~ Peter Garrett, former Australian environment minister



Former minister calls for Labor to declare a climate emergency

“The former environment minister Peter Garrett has urged an incoming Labor government to convene a climate emergency summit to plot a transition to zero carbon, and create a super department aligned to Treasury, like the Department of Post War Reconstruction after the second world war, to implement the transition.”
~ Katharine Murphy, political editor, The Guardian Australia

→ The Guardian – 9 May 2019:
Peter Garrett urges Bill Shorten to declare climate emergency if Labor wins
“Exclusive: Former environment minister calls for creation of ‘war’ cabinet committee to plot transition to zero carbon.”

Taking a climate emergency declaration to the Australian parliament

The federal Greens will push for Australia to declare a national “climate emergency”, following in the footsteps of the UK. With Britain’s parliament becoming the first in the world to make such a declaration, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale says it’s time to do the same at home.

“We’ve put forward proposals to the parliament already. We’ll be doing that again when we return to the parliament,” he told AAP on 4 May 2019. “We’re calling on both the Liberal and the Labor party to support what the conservative party in the UK have now adopted.”

Senator Di Natale says the push isn’t a lost cause in Australia’s political environment because “the pressure (to act) is building and it’s building very fast. The major parties ignore the community at their own peril.”

→ SBS / AAP – 4 May 2019:
Greens urge climate emergency declaration “The Greens will push the Australian parliament to declare a national “climate emergency” after the federal election, party leader Richard Di Natale says.”




If re-elected, Adam Bandt from the Greens promises to move the declaration of a climate emergency in the Australian parliament. The clip is from the conservative national newspaper The Australian. Excerpts:

• Greens MP Adam Bandt says he will move for the new parliament to declare a climate emergency in Australia. “It is time to act as if our house is on fire, because it is,” Bandt says.

• The progressive tide for global action is leaving Shorten far behind, let alone Morrison.

• Any Labor victory in the May 18 election (that) rejects the debate about modelling, costs and economic downsides in favour of the principle of urgent action to fight global warming… would crush the conservative side of the Coalition, with its ideology of climate change caution.

→ The Australian – 4 May 2019:
Shorten reinvents climate politics
By Paul Kelly  

Climate emergency declaration in New South Wales parliament



Abigail Boyd: “My first notice of motion in parliament acknowledges the climate emergency and calls on the government to stop approving new thermal coal, oil and gas extraction. Let’s embrace our renewable energy future and create thousands of sustainable jobs in NSW.”

Abigail Boyd is the Greens MP in NSW Parliament. Before her election she was a corporate lawyer specialising in global banking regulation










The Weekly with Charlie Pickering referring to the UK climate emergency declaration