Well folks, the time has come. Rudd’s confirmed he’ll be attending the Copenhagen climate summit along with other world leaders.
With just a few weeks before the meeting, it’s more critical than ever that we get our message to Rudd. What we want to see is a binding deal with strong targets and money on the table for developing countries. No more dodgy dealings, no more cheats, no more loopholes. We need Kev to deliver.
Or come 18 December, his name will be a dirty word.
You’ve still got a chance to tell Rudd exactly what kind of deal you think he should make at Copenhagen by sending him a letter.
PS: When the Copenhagen meeting kicks off, we’ll report on key developments inside and outside the meeting – news from the political negotiations and activists on the scene. All the action will be happening here.
Have you heard all this talk about 350ppm? Well, 350 is the safe level for parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere and what it will take to solve the climate crisis. We’re currently at 390 ppm.
On 24 October, people around the world will be taking action to tell their leaders to do whatever it takes to get us at or below 350ppm. It’s all being coordinated by 350.org. Here’s their video to tell you what it’s all about.
GetUp!’s new spoof iCoal 2.0 ad makes you wonder how the coal industry could ever think it had a PR problem? Surely, if they do, it’s just down to a lack of imagination?
Yet they obviously realise their image is getting tarnished. Why else would the Australian Coal Association have launched their own slick ad campaign recently, and why else would the Victorian government be trying to raise the penalties for activists protesting against Victorian coal?
That’s right, folks. The Victorian Government has proposed penalties for those who deliberately trespass or interfere with critical electricity infrastructure … such as activists protesting against the impact of burning coal in Victoria on the world’s attempts to address climate change.
If the proposal is passed, citizens taking peaceful action for climate change at coal-fired power stations could face 2 years in jail or a $28 000 fine. This is obviously a grossly exaggerated, knee-jerk reaction to the growing disgust for dirty coal among the community.
The truth is, people are getting sick of hearing about how the coal industry is more important than the climate. And it’s not due to a lack of imagination on the industry’s part. A document leaked from Victorian cabinet the other day revealed a plan to ‘dry’ Victoria’s previously un-exportable brown coal, pipe it 150kms to the nearest port, and start exporting it – hoping to hell they can compete economically with black coal, which is cleaner, gives off more energy, and doesn’t require an expensive drying process.
Sound like a winning plan? Well, it certainly demonstrates great imagination. But what it really highlights is the nature of the dirty deals between the coal industry and Australian government.
That’s right, it’s no kev’n joke that climate change is already happening and affecting people’s lives the world over.
It’s why all around the globe, people like you and me are taking action and calling upon their leaders to really make the difference at Copenhagen.
Tck Tck Tck is a global campaign that is asking world leaders to sign a global climate deal that is ambitious, fair and binding. It’s a coalition of groups including Amnesty International, WWF, Christian Aid, Oxfam and Greenpeace. Why? Because this is the real deal.
Watch this inspiring, heartfelt video from the Tck Tck Tck campaign.
I bet UK parliamentarians got a kev’n surprise when they returned from their summer break on Monday.
The night before, 55 Greenpeace activists scaled the hallowed walls of the UK’s Houses of Parliament. They occupyied the roof for over 24 hours, calling for a new style of politics in Britain – one capable of rising to meet the challenge of climate change. They remained until the early hours of Monday morning, when they were taken down by the Fuzz.
The Brits aren’t ones to shy away from confronting their leaders. Think the year 1215, when the barons got the monarch to agree to rights and freedoms. Today, world leaders have the opportunity to create something even more historical and significant than the Magna Carta. It’s called a global agreement on climate change. And, like the Magna Carta, it will influence generations to come.
Anyway, I’ll quit being medievil and let you watch footage of the kev’n legends in the UK.
Related links
» Greenpeace UK: “Greenpeace volunteers occupy Parliament to save the climate”
People at the peaceful community action at a Helensburgh coal mine this weekend had a message for Kevin Rudd: “Don’t Kev the climate!”
Some 300 k#v’n legends stopped trains and trucks running from the mine on Sunday, with 50 peacefully blockading the road leading to the mine. Four others shut down operations at the nearby Dendrobium coal mine by locking themselves to the conveyor belt.
They were protesting against the recently approved expansion of Metropolitan mine in Helensburgh, which will double the amount of dirty greenhouse gases it spews into the atmosphere every year.
Despite heckling from some Helensburgh locals, the vibe was calm and the crowd was diverse, ranging from babies to 90 year-olds. Speakers reminded everyone that the protest was peaceful and demanded a clean and sustainable future for Helensburgh, with a transition to green jobs and a renewable energy industry. It became an opportunity to start conversations, where protesters explained why they were there, and heard local perspectives too.
More protests and conversations like this, in the heart of coal communities, are essential for starting to challenge the deep-rooted attitudes about coal that exist among the wider public. It was great to be a part of planting such a seed this weekend.
See photos from the weekend below. Click on image to enlarge.
Check out Executive Director of the Australian Coal Association (ACA) Ralph Hillman in this spoof video doing of the new ACA campaign. The video’s been doing the rounds on YouTube.
The ACA is obviously very worried that Rudd’s “coal over climate” policy is under threat, so they’ve hatched a cunning plan to get everyday Australians to do their dirty work for them. Last week, they launched a slick (well, ok, maybe slick as in “oil slick”) campaign to scare people into supporting their call for more free handouts from the government. They gave their own image a makeover in the process, albeit not particularly exciting considering the amount of dollar$ they would’ve spent.
Hillman fronts the ad, imploring Australia to “cut emissions not jobs”. He seems to think that casting the coal industry’s lot in with Aussie battlers in regional communities is the best way to portray themselves as innocent (but caring!) scapegoats of misguided climate policy.
Unfortunately for the ACA’s credibility, their own website contradicts the claim of widespread job losses. The relevant union – the CFMEU – reckons the campaign is “blatantly dishonest”.
Perhaps it’s not Aussie jobs the ACA is so concerned with after all, but the fat profits of executives like Hillman.
The ACA’s campaign highlights the dirtyness of an industry that’s making millionaires of industry fat cats and doesn’t care if it k#vs the climate in the process. Shame it’s not Hillman’s job on the line …
Hold the presses because ANOTHER spoof of the ACA advertisement has surfaced on the interwebs. This time, it’s from Dan Ilic and the crew at ABC TV show Hungry Beast. Check out their examination of Hillman’s message.
Freedom, Freeedooommmmm came the cry as the Dirty K#v Two stepped blinking into the Canberra sunlight after an historic legal victory against the forces of climate catastrophe.
The two had been plucked from the streets by the forces of order a couple of weeks back shortly after using a high-pressure water hose to stencil ‘don’t k#v it up’ onto a street outside the Federal Parliament using a technique known as clean graffiti.
However, the dirty climate deals going on inside the halls of power emit so much filth that the surrounding pavements return to grimy normality barely hours after being hosed clean.
So, at 9.30am on Monday morning, a rather sheepish magistrate cited lack of evidence and the case was dropped.
The hosers will be back. Keep your eyes peeled for the dirty k#v logo around town… and send us your photos.
Climate change debates sometimes feels like reading a bowl alphabet soup: IPCC, UNFCC, CCS, PPM and so many more acronyms it can get just plain silly.
The diversity of acronyms is matched only by the plethora of ways to express action on climate change: 40% on 1990 levels by the 2020, 50% aggregate equivalent gases on 2000 levels by 2030, 100% renewable by 2017.
It was this maze of numbers and acronyms that led US climate campaigners to start 350.org, an organisation calling for CO2 levels in the atmosphere to stay at or below 350 parts per million, which is widely agreed as the level needed to prevent dangerous climate change.
The idea of 350 is a great one, a simple number that can easily be used as a yardstick for success and failure of climate policy. Will the agreement/policy/legislation keep carbon to 350 or below? Yes? Good. No? Bad.
Of course there are organisations that are calling for higher and lower numbers, different measure and a diversity of ways of expressing these. This is part of the strength in diversity of environmental campaigners, but for lay people it can all be a little bit much to take in.
The effect of the 350.org campaign in the States, where the population’s understanding of climate issues has traditionally been below Australian and European, has been profound. One number, easy to understand and explain and talk about has acted as a rallying point for countless activists, organisations and individuals across the country.
Now those three little digits are having their moment on the international stage. October 24th will be a massive day, with people from across the globe calling for 350 to be agreed upon as the maximum level of pollution allowed.
Groups around Australia and the world are planning for a huge number of creative, fun, inspirational activities all about that magic number 350. There are boats and picnics, human signs and concerts, videos and dances. Check out this inspiring video and find what is happening in your community by visiting www.350.org.
In December world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to decide upon an new protocol for tackling climate change, the last of these was twelve years ago, in Kyoto. For people wanting to know if the meetings have gone far enough, 350 is one way to measure these without getting overwhelmed by the alphabet of acronyms and googleplex of numbers out there.
During the weekend it emerged that there was a problem with the Copenhagen ‘Treaty’. No, it wasn’t the fact that there is no agreement on financing, targets, or one of the other many sticking points on the road to securing the sort of climate deal that we so desperately need.
Instead, the problem was with the translators of the current text. It turned out that the text is impossible to translate, because it doesn’t make any sense.
This rare bit of humour is symptomatic of a major issue at the core of the climate crisis. The issue has become so complex, so convoluted and so confusing that only the most hardened of policy wonk has even the slightest bit of idea what is going on.
The result has been public disempowerment and even apathy: the perfect conditions for a government bent on looking good on climate whilst doing as little as possible.
Today, Greenpeace launched a briefing to demystify parts of the process, expose the gap between rhetoric and reality and above all, shed light on efforts by the Rudd Government to get something for nothing.
The briefing, entitled ‘Shock and Bore: a Cheat’s Guide to Copenhagen’ shows that through creative accountancy — essentially cooking the climate books — Australia is aiming to conjure a massive 13 per cent emissions reduction whilst continuing with business as usual. For instance, we can hit an 8 per cent reduction simply by changing the rules for how land-use changes are accounted for. Sound like a cheat? That’s because it is.
Through a mixture of rule changes to Kyoto and the purchase of cheap international pollution credits, Australia would be able to meet a major part, or even all, of its emission reduction target even despite the ongoing expansion of the coal industry.
Great news for the big polluters and great news for Rudd’s image. Shame about the planet.
What message would you like to pass on to Kevin Rudd about his government’s cheating on climate change?”
