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Climate Change & the Zero Carbon World

Climate Change

Climate change has been a top priority for the Greens for many years and the party has a comprehensive policy platform that would see Australia take the only globally responsible course of action and start rebuilding our society and economy around the exciting vision of a zero emissions world.

While governments and industry are tinkering around the edges and talking about small, incremental action to reduce emissions, our climate is changing faster than most scientists had predicted and greenhouse emissions are increasing faster than the IPCC's worst scenarios. If the globe warms more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels the impacts will be too severe and the risks of runaway climate change too great. We only have a few years to turn around global emissions or 2°C warming will be locked in.

The Greens are the only political party in Australia to recognise that the time for incremental action is long past and we now need transformative policies to turn Australia from one of the world's worst polluters into a zero emissions economy of the future. Urgent action must start now. The Greens recognise that, if we get that action right, rolling out energy efficiency upgrades and switching to renewable energy, moving to fuel efficient and electric cars, with more car-pooling, redesigning our cities around mass transit hubs, cycleways and walking paths, and rethinking our agriculture and forestry, we can seize tremendous opportunities to make Australia a better, fairer, healthier and happier place to live.

Green car plan one small step in the right direction

Blog Post | Christine Milne
Thursday 20th November 2008, 2:58pm

This post was first published at ABC's Unleashed site:

With the global financial meltdown meeting the climate meltdown head on, the potential to deal with both crises using the same solutions has been gaining support.

Last month, the United Nations Environment Program joined with Deutsche Bank and others to promote a 'Green New Deal' based on investing billions of dollars in the four pillars of renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean transport and ecosystem protection, reducing greenhouse emissions, building infrastructure and creating millions of new jobs. World leaders such as US President-elect Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon have publicly embraced the proposal, with Obama listing a $150 billion clean energy plan as his top priority.

The 'Green New Deal', taking its inspiration from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 'New Deal' to build the USA out of the Great Depression, is only the most recent embodiment of strategies put forward from Hobart to London over the last few decades, recognising that investing in protecting the environment is the only sensible economic plan.

Lights out for solar panel plant

Newsflash | Spokesperson Christine Milne
Wednesday 19th November 2008, 9:33am

Will Rudd act to save solar jobs?

Media Release | Spokesperson Christine Milne
Tuesday 18th November 2008, 10:49am

The Rudd Government must act decisively to save the jobs of the 200 highly skilled solar cell manufacturers that will be lost with the closure of BP Solar's plant in Sydney, the Australian Greens said today.

"Prime Minister Rudd faces a defining moment today in convincing Australians that he cares about climate change and the green jobs revolution," said Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate Change Spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne.

Greens shocked at NT nuclear dump anger

Media Release | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Monday 17th November 2008, 4:28pm

'Martin Ferguson wouldn't build a nuclear dump in Batman'

Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has challenged Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson to visit the site of a proposed nuclear dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory before giving the go-ahead.

Speaking before a protest rally in Alice Springs today ahead of a Senate Inquiry investigating whether the nuclear dump proposal should be stopped, Senator Ludlam said he was shocked at the extent to which traditional owners were being ignored by Minister Ferguson.

Carbon capture plans will hurt taxpayers: Milne

Newsflash | Spokesperson Christine Milne
Monday 17th November 2008, 3:44pm

Closure of NSW soil carbon research centre

Media Release | Spokesperson Christine Milne
Monday 17th November 2008, 2:21pm

Australian Greens Deputy Leader and climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, said:

"The best climate change strategy for rural and regional Australia is in learning how to keep more carbon in the soils - reducing our climate impact and building resilience to the warming that we've already caused.

Address to Foreign Correspondents' Association

Greens TV | Spokesperson Bob Brown
Monday 17th November 2008, 9:40am

Wedge-tail eagles, the swift parrot and other rare bird species are losing their habitats due to logging of Tasmania's forests, while the resulting wood chips that are exported to Japan are used to fire boilers to provide "green" electricity there. The irony in this was inescapable, when Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown pointed it out in his address to FCA members and guests in Sydney on 4 November, as it also was when Senator Brown told his audience of over 30 foreign correspondents that Australia's carbon emissions would be reduced immediately by 20 per cent, if we stopped logging our forests now.

Footage copyright Foreign Correspondents Association - Richard Monk

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