The Climate Change Authority is calling for submissions

Please consider taking a few minutes to make a submission to the Climate Change Authority — the deadline is **tomorrow** (Friday)!! Even if you only write a couple of paragraphs, it really helps. They need to know that we care passionately about this and want real action.

Here’s my submission.. a bit rambly, but the main thing is just to send in something.

Please feel free to borrow bits from mine if helps. GetUp also has info that can guide you at this link below. Thanks!

https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/climate-action-now/ambition-submission/

Dear Review Panel,

I would like to add my voice to the vast majority of Australians1 who want effective and immediate action to reduce carbon emissions — as is occurring with the current Carbon Pricing system — and indeed want our government to do even more to make sure we achieve our 2020 targets and reach zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.

Climate change is, in my opinion (an opinion backed by the most up to date scientific evidence and consensus), the single most important threat facing our planet and our way of life.

Prevention is by far the best policy, and inaction or parsimony in this area now will cost us heavily in the future in so many ways.

It is already costing us – financially and in lives and heartache – in the increased number of extreme weather events such as floods, bushfires and tornados.

It is ridiculous to look at isolated personal cost-of-living bills in the face of such an overwhelming national and global emergency.

For instance, even if it were true that axing the carbon pricing system could save families $500 per year (and there does not seem much good evidence for that claim), our insurance premiums are rising at a rate way beyond that due to the increase in extreme events, and will continue to do so.

We are also currently spending billions trying to ‘protect our borders’ from Asylum Seekers and yet the real threat is within, in our reliance on coal and other polluting and non-renewable resources for energy and manufacturing and our refusal to face up to the need to change.

The numbers of people displaced through climate change in the future will make today’s ‘problem’ seem miniscule.

The world is warming, and humans are the primary cause (as the IPCC report confirmed).

We have the means to change to renewable clean energy production and to reduce our carbon footprint, and incentives such as a carbon pricing scheme or ETS are essential to provide the will.

The technology (eg solar and other renewables), the design (passive solar for housing, thermal mass etc) and the materials (eg hempcrete which can act as a carbon sink) are already available. Well-funded R&D in these areas will continue to make these more and more efficient and cost-effective.

Failure to act now to set and take action to achieve significant targets is so vastly irresponsible that it beggars belief.

Indeed, I feel that failure to act is immoral, and will be seen that way by future generations who will suffer in ways beyond imagining for our obsession with money and our inability to envision the vast benefits of embracing positive change now.

I recommend that the CCA adopt a target of 25% emissions reduction by 2020 and a zero emissions target by 2050.

yours sincerely,
Beth Spencer

1. that a majority of Australians want action on carbon emissions and climate change has been supported by numerous polls, including a recent one reported in the news this week that showed only a small minority wanted the carbon pricing axed and/or supported the LNP’s ‘direct action’ plan.

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Here’s the link again to make a submission – remember, even a few lines will help let the Climate Change Authority know that we care and we want action.