Promote Climate Justice
Promote climate justice and climate education.
Step 10) Climate Justice and Education
Action: The Tasmanian Government must commit itself to working actively in the national and international climate debate to achieve climate justice not only for Tasmanians, but for all global citizens.
This will include:
- a commitment to report transparently to the Tasmanian people on the climate impact of all government decisions and the extent to which progress is being made to reduce emissions sector by sector in Tasmania;
- a commitment to firstly identify and secondly rollback all subsidies to climate polluting activities and companies in Tasmania;
- advocating faster stronger action on the part of the national government;
- and doing our fair share to assist those countries most affected by climate change, including resettling 'climate refugees' in Tasmania.
It will also include working actively to dispel common climate change myths and to educate the Tasmanian people about the real threats posed to us by climate change.
Rationale: The work of transforming Tasmania into a truly sustainable State demands mutual trust and a high degree of cooperation and collaboration. This will not be achieved where secrecy, corruption of due process, subsidies to polluting activities and poor standards of public accountability are allowed to flourish. The Tasmanian people expect transparency and accountability from its political leaders with respect to the consequences of their decisions on climate change.
In addition, since climate change is by definition a global issue, Tasmania must work with the Australian Government and the international community to help deliver climate justice for us all. The Tasmanian Government must stand up to the Australian Government in pointing out the inherent flaws of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, for example, and help to have it replaced with strong, adequate and equitable climate policies.
Finally, the developed countries, including Australia and the state of Tasmania, have accounted for at least 80% of the stock of anthropogenic greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere in modern times. We must therefore accept the majority of the blame for anthropogenic climate change, and seek to mitigate the damage we have done by, at a minimum, assisting to resettle those peoples in the developing world displaced by climate change.