News April 2018
A message from our President:
Polls clearly show that Australians do not want to waste public money on an overseas billionaire’s polluting project that will destroy the Reef and tens of thousands of tourism jobs. People power forced the Queensland government to veto a $1B loan to Adani, but the Turnbull government should never have considered using NAIF to fund Adani’s polluting coal mine in the first place. Now the government should rule out using the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation (EFIC) as a backdoor way of propping up Adani. Using EFIC represents another desperate attempt by the Federal government to support Adani’s polluting mine. It would add to the enormous level of public money that Adani have already been promised by all levels of government, including free and unlimited groundwater, huge royalty concessions and the construction of an airport to service the mine.
Mining and burning coal will worsen the impacts of climate change, creating more heatwaves, bushfires and droughts, and destroy the Great Barrier Reef. Australians want investment in clean energy and a brighter future. That’s why we need to #StopAdani!
Kerri-ann Jones
CCA President
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Coming events:
1. CCA Livestreaming of Bill McKibben, 3 May:
350.org founder and world-renowned climate defender Bill McKibben is coming to Australia to talk to people about what we need to do to accelerate our response to climate change, move money and influence from the fossil fuel industry, and bring on clean energy.
Climate Change Australia (Hastings) will be livestreaming Bill’s public event from Melbourne. Will you join our Accelerate Climate Action livestream viewing event?
When: Thursday 3 May
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Lions Club, 176 Hastings River Drive, Port Macquarie.
RSVP here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/port-macquarie-accelerate-climate-action-livestream?source=twitter
2. Kempsey Film Night, 18 May:
Living Sustainably Macleay Valley invites you to attend their screening of two #StopAdani documentaries: Guarding the Galilee and A Mighty Force on 18th May at the Oddfellows Hall, West Kempsey. More details on their Facebook site: Stop Adani film screening Kempsey
3. Beyond Coal and Gas Jamboree, 31 May – 3 June:
Our group has been invited to join the 2018 Beyong Coal and Gas Jamboree in late May on the Sunshine Coast. The Jamboree is the biggest gathering of community groups and activists working to power Australia beyond coal and gas. Relationships are what make our movement powerful and nothing beats spending focussed time together to forge new connections across groups and campaigns.
When: Evening of Thursday, 31 May, through to afternoon of Sunday, 3 June 2018
Where: Alexandra Park Conference Centre Sunshine Coast, Queensland (just 15 minutes from Sunshine Coast airport)
What: Three days of exciting national and international speakers, workshops and plenaries. Opportunities to develop skills. Open spaces so you can define the workshops you want to see. Evening entertainment to celebrate our collective efforts to change the world.
Where: Alexandra Park Conference Centre Sunshine Coast, Queensland (just 15 minutes from Sunshine Coast airport)
What: Three days of exciting national and international speakers, workshops and plenaries. Opportunities to develop skills. Open spaces so you can define the workshops you want to see. Evening entertainment to celebrate our collective efforts to change the world.
Registration now open! Grab your tickets here
Find out more: www.beyondcoalandgas.org
4. NCC Conference, 26 & 27 May:
The Nature Conservation Council of NSW invites you to their 2018 Regional Conference in Queanbeyan, co-hosted with member group Climate Action Monaro. The themes for this year are native forest logging and climate
Where: Queanbeyan at the Jerrabomberra Community Centre
When: Saturday and Sunday, May 26th and 27th -The conference program will run all day Saturday, with a conference dinner Saturday night and a field trip on Sunday.
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Petition - Close Liddell power station:
AGL has a greenhouse plan. They gave the government seven years’ notice of their intentions to close Liddell, and their plan to replace it with clean energy will result in cheaper power. We need to make sure the AGL Board stand up to the government’s bullying and hold strong on their commitment.
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Seaside Scavenge:
This month CCA was again involved in the seaside scavenge, this time at Westport Park in Port Macquarie. The scavenge is a project working towards cleaner coastlines and waterways. Here's a snap of our stand:
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Frontline Action on Coal – arrests and fines up-date:
A big thank you to CCA members who have donated to the legal defence fund for the nine people - many of them first-time offenders – who were fined $72,000 for their efforts in January to keep Adani’s coal in the ground. They were each fined $8000 for their peaceful action at the Abbot Point coal terminal north of Bowen, Queensland. Four of the fined protestors are members of the Coffs Coast Climate Action Group, our colleagues to the north. There has been much outrage at the size of these fines and they will be appealing, but this is also a costly process. If you can, please consider donating to their legal defence fund and share this with your networks. There are two options:
A site for all nine people who received $8000 fines: https://chuffed.org/project/adani-protest-defence-fund
The Coffs Harbour specific fundraiser: https://chuffed.org/project/coffs-crew-legals-fundraiser-stop-adani-port-action
The four protestors from the Coffs group plus another from Townsville.
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No electricity from burning our forests:
The NSW government is changing the rules to allow clear-felling of areas up to 50 – 80 ha in forests between Grafton and Taree. Logs will be pelletised and burned in wood-fired power stations. A government report proposes three such power stations at Bulahdelah, Grafton and Kempsey. Burning wood for electricity is more expensive and more polluting than wind and solar. Studies show that to combat climate change, we must allow forests to return to their mature natural state as carbon sinks. There is no recognition of the need for a carbon budget before this logging can be approved, once again ignoring climate change. The claim that wood is a renewable resource ignores the fact that it takes decades to recapture the carbon emitted by their destruction and burning – time we do not have. Act now to stop this proposed destruction of our forests.
You can get involved with a group like NEFF (a new group formed with the support of CCA members) https://www.facebook.com/NEFFACTION/
Or these other organisations:
And you can email the Premier at http://www.nsw.gov.au/contact-us/contact-the-premier/
Contact CCA Treasurer, Frank Dennis for more information about getting involved: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The reality of logging today – roadside view near Coorabakh National Park
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Harry’s Musings:
Submitted by founding CCA member & ex-CCA President, Harry Creamer.
I have some nagging worries about the NEG (National Energy Guarantee). CCA is concerned that it deliberately blocks the growth of renewable energy. Once the contribution of solar households and leading state government targets is accounted for, a do-nothing scenario would deliver more renewable energy than the NEG will!
This is not acceptable. The climate science is clear – we must decrease our national emissions dramatically, ASAP, and renewable energy is the easiest, cheapest, fastest way to do this. Long-standing Coalition antipathy towards clean energy means the NEG has been constructed to block renewables and allow coal power to continue beyond its close-by date in the coming decade.
The NSW government likes the NEG because it will mean they can continue to do nothing, leaving it up to the electricity generators and Labor states with more ambitious targets, to lead. NSW only gets 11% renewable energy (don’t be misled by the figure the government is using of 20% - it was a one-off due to more hydro power at that time). A look at the Labor states’ RETs shows what needs to be done - VIC 40% by 2025; QLD and NT 50% by 2030. (South Australia, despite the change of government, could still reach a 75% RET and storage target of 25%!)
One last thing - watch out for confusion between the two targets. The renewable energy target (RET) is referred to above, but there is also the emissions reduction target (ERT). The RET is currently 23% by 2020, with no target beyond then. It will be met. The ERT of 26% is the Coalition’s low-ambition offer to meet our Paris commitments and is a far bigger challenge. The NEG only requires a 26% ERT to apply to the energy sector. What about the other emissions sectors – agriculture, transport, buildings, industrial processes? So far only a deafening silence from both federal and state governments.
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Fracking in the NT:
Most of you will be aware of the decision to lift the moratorium on fracking in the NT. This is a bad decision for our climate and could see an increase in Australian emissions by up to 5%. Here are some links to work done by the Australia Institute on this issue:
What can you do to help? Write a letter directly to Chief Minister Michael Gunner This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. expressing your concerns.
More information can be found at http://dontfracktheterritory.org/category/latest-news/media-releases/
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Wind farms on track to deliver $10.5bn back to host communities:
A recent report finds that up to $21.5m a year is going directly to host communities through wind farm benefit sharing mechanisms; with billions to broader regional economies. Read more here: https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-farms-on-track-to-deliver-10-5bn-back-to-host-communities-86989/
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Green Electricity Guide:
This month Greenpeace and the Total Environment Centre released the latest version of their Green Electricity Guide. The guide is the only independent ranking of the environmental performance of electricity retailers selling to Australian households - and considers factors including the company’s emissions intensity, its investments in and policy positions on renewable energy, and their corporate transparency and sustainability reporting. This year Powershop and Diamond Energy were the highest ranked retailers, both receiving 5 stars. You can find the guide, with the full report and methodology of how they got the results, here: https://www.greenelectricityguide.org.au/
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Time2Choose Rally:
CCA members were well represented among participants in the rally in Sydney last month. Can you find CCA Secretary, Mick Lyons (wearing his CCA t-shirt) in this snap:
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