Why I'm glad (and sad) this World Environment Day
There's a lot of be glum about when you read the environment news. But amidst the gloom, Natalie Isaacs finds some bright sparks of hope.
I'M A BIT EMOTIONALLY CONFLICTED this World Environment Day, 5 June 2014. Sad, yet with distinct glimmerings of becoming very glad, which needs some explaining.
I have travelled overseas several times for 1 Million Women in the past nine months - to Europe and North America, and it makes me sad when people ask me: 'What is going on in Australia?'
An Australian Government set on abolishing the carbon trading scheme that many people worked so hard for over 15 years.
The Great Barrier Reef in peril, along with Australia's international reputation for looking after our World Heritage sites.
Land-clearing bulldozers rolling in Queensland again. Giant coal and gas projects, and the ports and loaders and terminals required to export fossil fuels to an already warming world, still being approved by our governments almost without question. The vital 20 per cent by 2020 Renewable Energy Target under threat.
Our big banks still funding fossil fuel projects. Our big energy utilities trying to kill off renewable energy. Our big beverage companies fighting to stop the commonsense introduction of a national 10-cent deposit scheme for bottles and cans
Sad that proven programs and laws protecting Australia's precious natural and human environments are being stripped away, to be replaced by slogans like the 'Green Army' and 'Direct Action'.
And, as a woman, gobsmacked that in 2014 our country is being led down this dangerously anti-environmental path by a Federal Cabinet that has only one female minister, just one woman sitting with 18 male ministers. It's all so male, pale and stale and I often think how different the path might be if we had a cabinet of 18 women and one man, or even just something like a 50-50 balance.
So how can I be glad? Indeed what is there to be glad about?
I am actually surprised how much I can see to be happy about, given the sadness inventory I've just outlined above.
I am glad that the latest annual Lowy Institute poll, released yesterday (June 4th), shows that Australians are becoming more concerned about climate change. That's a turnaround many have been waiting for.
By the end of this year there will be more than 1.3 million Australian homes with rooftop solar.
I see farmers lining up alongside environmentalists to fight coal and coal seam gas developments, and our young people are coming alive to the threat of climate change to the world they will inherit.
The Coalition Government in NSW has just come out in support of the Renewable Energy Target, while their political brothers (and the occasional sister) in Canberra are out to cripple or kill it, and that affordable technologies for home battery storage and electric vehicles are on the way
China is planning to treble solar electricity generation by 2017, and move to national carbon trading in 2018. South Australia is regularly generating a third of its electricity demand from renewable sources, and Germany up to three-quarters.
And while Australian commitment to climate action fades, the world's greatest economies of the US and China are stepping up. Just last week Barack Obama said: "As President, and as a parent, I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that's beyond fixing" and this week he cracked down on carbon pollution from coal-fired power stations.
Next year the world will go to Paris for the COP21 United Nations climate negotiations, focused on a post-Kyoto Protocol agreement for 2020 onwards, with impetus from America, whatever laggard nations like Australia and Canada say.
I am very glad that gender and climate change is a strengthening theme on the international stage, propelled by inspiring women like the UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, the World Bank's Rachel Kyte and Irish stateswoman Mary Robinson.
It's wonderfully reassuring that the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is overriding the Australian Government with its ongoing review of the conservation status of the Great Barrier Reef, which could see the Reef declared 'World Heritage in Danger' to force real action on its protection.
Finally, I'm very, very glad that well over 100,000 women and girls have now joined 1 Million Women, and that our community of women who are acting in their daily lives to stop dangerous climate change becomes more powerful every day.
Happy World Environment Day 2014!
Natalie Isaacs is the founder of 1 Million Women, an Australia-wide community of women and girls taking action on climate change through the way they live
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment