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Climate change

Australia is among the world’s worst climate and environmental criminals. Neither the Coalition nor Labor will take the action required to change this. The major parties, in fact, are part of the problem. 

Promises of “net zero emissions by 2050” are a recipe for disaster. They are designed to give the impression of action while allowing the environmentally destructive reliance on fossil fuels to continue indefinitely. 

We need to take action based on what is necessary to avert climate catastrophe, not just what is palatable to the corporate lobbyists that have prevented real climate action for the last three decades.

What we think

  1. Climate change is a direct product of the capitalist world economy, which turns everything in the natural environment into a resource exploitable for private profits.
  2. Climate change cannot be addressed through market mechanisms; it requires a comprehensive restructuring of the economy.
  3. The high concentration of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere means that “net-zero emissions” will not be enough to curtail dangerous global warming; net-negative emissions will be required to reduce greenhouse gas levels.
  4. Nuclear power is neither clean nor renewable.
  5. The effects of climate change are disproportionately felt by people on low incomes; their lives and livelihoods need to be protected not only from changes to the climate, but during the transition to a new economy.
  6. The economic burden of dealing with climate change must fall primarily on those who have profited from destroying the environment: the rich and the big polluters.

We'll fight to

  1. Establish public ownership and democratic control over the energy industry
  2. Adopt a whole-of-economy emergency plan to shift to 100 percent of electricity from renewables by 2030
  3. Establish a new publicly-controlled renewable energy operator with a charter to secure long-term energy security - ensuring cheap, reliable renewable power and generating tens of thousands of well-paid public sector jobs.
  4. Transition to a zero emissions economy by 2035
  5. Impose an immediate ban on new coal mines and a ban on coal fired power by 2030
  6. End fracking and all unconventional gas extraction
  7. Impose a ban on new gas projects
  8. Guarantee alternative secure jobs and retraining for workers from the fossil fuel industry
  9. Increase investment in public transport
  10. Win justice for those displaced by climate change
  11. Ban logging of old-growth forests and establish an urgent program of reforestation, sustainable farming and biodiversity protection
  12. End uranium mining and halt any attempt to build an Australian nuclear industry
  13. Invest in publicly-owned recycling and green tech facilities to reduce waste going to landfill. Private operators to be removed from the waste industry.
  14. End the profiteering of water trading and crackdown on the stealing of water by agribusiness
  15. Establish new regulations for urban planning and design to ensure environmental efficiency and sustainability