The Climate Justice Fast!, an international hunger strike for action on the climate crisis, is currently on day 17.
Let’s be frank. Australia’s response to climate change so far is a disgrace. It is well understood, by even Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong, that the emissions reduction targets of the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) are scientifically inadequate to effectively respond to climate change.
Even if it’s maximum reduction target of 25% by 2020 is implemented, and other nations make similar efforts, atmospheric greenhouse gasses will still overshoot a safe level, very likely pushing us past tipping points that lock into place disastrous runaway climate change.
And once we take into account our world-beating per-capita emissions, combined with our chart-topping standard of living, our nation’s token efforts on climate change become simply impossible to justify.
We know this, so let’s not harp on it. As Australians concerned about the future of our nation, we need to accept the reality that our nation is nowhere near implementing responsible climate policies.
But we also need to ask ourselves, whose fault is this, really? Because there are a range of views. Is it the government, for prioritising political safety over an adequate response to climate change?
Or is it perhaps the opposition, for entertaining bizarre climate-denialist theories and lowering the bar for what can be done?
Or, last but not least, is it our perennial whipping boys ‘big business’ - for prioritising profits over the good of the planet and its people?
Well, yes. And yes. And yes.
But there is another culprit here, one who all to often escapes the blame for the environmental sins of our nation, and one who has even more pull over national policies than any of the aforementioned groups.
It is us. The people.
This is a fact all too easily forgotten, and frequently left out of discussions of the issue. The reason that Australia has shameful climate policies is that Australians have allowed it to. We can wring our hands and condemn politicians and big business all we like (and boy don’t we love to do this), but the cold hard fact remains: with sufficient public demand, government policy is what we the people say it is.
This is fairly simple, and hard to dispute. It means that real climate policies will come when our leaders are more concerned about the backlash from inaction than they are about the backlash from action.
And it also means that while we’re still not getting adequate policies, there is one fundamental reason for this- that we still haven’t demanded them strongly enough.
Yes, there are an enormous amount of people concerned about the issue. But how many Australians, really, are becoming climate activists, rather than remaining apathetic? And how many, really, will be changing their vote on the issue?
I can’t answer this with exact figures, but really, the response is simple: not enough. It’s that simple. In truth, we will know when these numbers do become enough, because that will be when our emissions reductions targets will be enough as well.
Most politicians prioritise power, and most businessmen prioritise profits. Sad but true. And if there was ever any doubt about these truths, then surely it has been removed by the intransigence shown by these groups in the face of the massive threat of climate change. We need to remember this if we are to effect change.
But we also always need to remember that ultimately, the real power in this world is that of the people. Mahatma Gandhi once said that ‘justice will come when it is deserved by our being and feeling strong’. This simply means that when the people want change, they will get it. And that if they are not currently getting it, well, they simply don’t want it enough.
When the Australian people are brought to a deeper understand climate change and its risks, begin to care deeply enough and mobilize en masse to demand science-based policies, we’ll see real action.
Those of us in the know must be doing everything we possibly can to bring this situation about.
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