‘Appalling’ policy inaction draws former UN climate leader into federal election campaign

The United Nations' former climate change czar has intervened in the Australian election, publicly backing four female independent candidates and calling out "appalling inaction in Canberra" on climate change.

Christiana Figueres is supporting Zali Steggall, Keryn
Phelps, Rebekha Sharkie and Julia Banks.

Christiana Figueres led the UN's global negotiating process that culminated in the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, and is now a climate leader at the World Bank.

She has thrown her support behind Zali Steggall, who is standing against former prime minister Tony Abbott in the NSW seat of Warringah, Wentworth MP Kerryn Phelps, Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie and the MP for Chisholm, Julia Banks, who resigned from the Liberal Party and is contesting the nearby seat of Flinders as an independent.

Read the story from ABC News by Stephen Long - “‘Appalling’ policy inaction draws former UN climate leader into federal election campaign.”

(If Australia’s contribution to climate change is so insignificant, according to the incumbent for the former seat of Murray and the National Party candidate for the new seat of Nicholls, Damian Drum, why would someone of Christina Figueres calibre intervene in our national election process? - Robert McLean) 

The world would vote to save Great Barrier Reef, why won't we?

If the rest of the world could vote in next month’s Australian election, there would almost certainly be one issue that would be raised to the top of the country’s political agenda: saving the Great Barrier Reef.

Scientists say this year 93% of its reefs experienced some bleaching, and 22% of all of the reef’s coral was killed by unusually warm waters. Unheard of just three decades ago, large-scale bleaching has become a regular occurrence. Scientists say that within 20 years the conditions that drove this year’s bleaching in Australia will occur every second year. A Guardian report illustrates in vivid detail the scale of the devastation unfolding beneath the surface. Over the past 34 years the average proportion of the Great Barrier Reef exposed to temperatures where bleaching or even death is likely has increased from about 11% a year to about 27% a year.

It is a constant struggle to motivate most people most of the time about climate change. The evidence accumulates slowly; despite being an emergency, it often feels very distant. But in Australia, and on other coral reefs around the world, we can see the sudden and devastating effects of climate change playing out before us. The Great Barrier Reef is under severe threat. Emergency action is needed on a much more ambitious scale than is now being planned. According to a Unesco report on climate change and world heritage sites, if we want to save even 10% of coral reefs around the world, the world needs to limit warming to 1.5C. And to save half of them, the world needs to limit warming to 1.2C – a tall order, when the world has already warmed by 1C.

Read what is written on The Guardian - “The Guardian view on the Great Barrier Reef: the crisis they prefer to downplay.”