Page 3388 - Week 11 - Thursday, 11 November 2021
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have a vague pledge about 2050, but it will be far too late then. What about 2030? What about the legislated targets that will get us there—targets that are consistent with the science and the Paris agreement?
The world has had a few wins at COP26 but we got almost nothing from our federal leader. We have signed up to a deforestation agreement, which the states and territories will have to deliver. It is a smooth move to only make promises that someone else has to make good on. Our federal leader agreed that EVs are maybe a thing, but he is still not quite sure. He is still pouring money into fossil fuel; and Australia rejected the methane agreement and refused to sign it. We might yet get more from COP26—it is still going on—or we might get more mantras based on denial and false hope in technology that does not yet exist.
Is real action too hard? No, it is not. Big cuts are easy to make. I know, because I have done it. I started a climate change project in 2017. Frustrated by the federal government’s tiny targets and greenwashed programs, I set out to do better. I decided to slash my carbon footprint one week at a time. I had no idea what I was doing; I had no idea if it was possible, but I cut 73 per cent from my carbon footprint in three years. I ran a parallel experiment and I did even better for the average Australian. Deep cuts are possible if you try.
The ACT government know this. We have done it here. ACT climate policy has been based on science and action for a decade. We have cut 60 per cent over the last nine years. Meanwhile our federal government have made no cuts—none. According to their inventory, between 2011 and 2020 emissions rose. The federal government is still supporting and subsidising fossil fuels. In 2020-21 they gave out public subsidies to the tune of $10.3 billion. That is our money going to the fossil fuels that will burn up our planet! Unbelievably, fossil fuel exploration and new coal and gas mines are still opening up in this country. Australia does not even get the benefits. Most of that money flows overseas or to a few billionaires. That figure of $10.3 billion in public subsidy is so large that it is hard to grasp. It means that in 2020, each and every minute of every day, $19,686 was effectively given to coal, oil and gas companies and major users of fossil fuel.
If we continue down this path, that Black Summer will be our new normal. I do not yet know what 2022 will bring, but past behaviour is the best predictor of future conduct. I do not trust these federal politicians to do anything other than what they have done for the past 10 years—not unless we make them do better.
I was at another climate rally on the weekend, listening to another school striker. She told us that in the first four years of her life she did not see rainfall. She said she wondered what was the point in studying if she did not know if she would be alive at the age of 30. This is a common sentiment from our children. It is not alarmist; it is realistic. More Canberrans died from climate change during our Black Summer than died from COVID.
My daughter is nearly eight. I did not take her to that rally, because now she can read the signs for herself, and they worry her. Why can’t our national leaders read those signs? We can turn this around. We are seeing so much leadership at so many
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