More than 2500 people linked hands and formed a circle all the way around Parliament House in Canberra today as part of a grassroots protest calling for urgent action on the climate emergency currently threatening the world.
Newcastle-based activist Naomi Hodgson said many ordinary Australians felt betrayed by the Rudd Government’s abysmal failure to take the required action to prevent catastrophic climate change, despite his election promises to do so.
“Today marks a turning point. It is an enormous success for the community climate movement. We will no longer sit on our lounges and watch the Government give in to polluting industries and consign us all to an uncertain and dangerous future,” Hodgson said.
She said the Rudd Government’s target of a 5 per cent reduction in carbon pollution by 2020 was nowhere near enough. And if the Federal Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme becomes law, Australia will be locked into dangerous levels of carbon emissions until at least 2020.
“If the CPRS goes ahead, all the carbon reduction efforts made by ordinary Australians will be made redundant and the profits from the scheme will largely be funnelled into the pockets of rich polluting corporations,” Hodgson said.
Climate change will affect all Australians. Heat wave-related deaths in Australian cities are predicted to increase by two to three-times by 2050, according to Professor Tony McMichael, consultant for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“The health impacts will strike unevenly between city and country, rich and poor,” McMichael told the gathered crowds. “Awareness of these health risks should strengthen our resolve as a society to help avert global climate change at its source."
Ms Hodgson said today’s protest marked the launch of the first ever united, national campaign strategy for Australia’s community climate action groups. It was formulated at an inaugural summit over the weekend.
