Setting our sights: our response to the Climate Change Authority targets review

Did you know that Parents for Climate has made 14 formal submissions to our various national, state and local Governments this year alone? Each submission is carefully presented to the relevant State or Federal Government authority, as a powerful voice representing parent’s interests, and in balance to the Industry or Trade lobbies.

One of our recent submission was in response to the Government Climate Change Authority (CCA) request for submission on Setting, Tracking and Achieving Australia’s emissions reduction targets – a critical subject in that if the government body tasked with policing emissions only receives submissions from Industry emitters….. well, we can guess the outcome!

Our message to the Climate Change Authority, can be summarised as Parents for Climate:

• Welcomes the increased role for the Climate Change Authority
• Recommends that urgently reducing fossil fuel supply be added to the strategic framework:
  • Fossil fuel export industry contributes less than 3% of federal and state government revenues; represents less than 4% of the ASX and only about 2% of major bank lending, so Australia’s economy is not hugely reliant on fossil fuels.
  • Australia has disproportionately contributed to the climate crisis through our excessive emissions relative to other advanced economies.
  • Australia has a legal responsibility to do this as a signatory to the Paris Agreement in 2015.
  • It is morally irresponsible for Australia to continue to promote and develop fossil fuel exports whilst fully understanding the implications for the planet as a whole.
• We recommend a range of targets, reflective of what Australia emits, and because all emissions matter, including Methane targets; Fossil Fuel export targets and International aviation and maritime targets.
• Advises it is essential that Australia adopts emissions reduction targets aligned with our fair share contribution to a 1.5C global carbon budget, with specific targets for emissions cuts, as assessed by University of Melbourne to be 74% below 2005 levels by 2030.
• Australia should be assisting developing countries (particularly in our region) to decarbonise, and specifically by developing large scale, cost effective renewal energy exports to support less developed nations in our region.

For more information, our full submission can be found here; In the meantime, we eagerly await advice of Government review and proposed outcomes from this process.

Moving forward, we continue to track for new submission requests, and have a number of upcoming submissions on our radar, covering diverse topics such as Southern Ocean Windfarm planning conditions; NSW Government Review of Offshore Oil / Wind Farm development and numerous others.

We are always keen to hear from any members with specific technical or graphical expertise and availability to join our growing submissions team and support this important work drop a message to [email protected]

Photo by Nicholas Doherty on Unsplash