Gloves off over climate policy

KELLY O’Shanassy has run out of time to be polite over climate policy.

The Australian Conservation Foundation CEO says recent warnings from scientists and two decades of climate inaction mean the gloves are off.

“If we continue to burn coal and gas for decades to come, we will kill the 1.5-degree target, we will not have a habitable planet and hundreds of millions of people will die,” she told the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday.

“When people are defending burning coal and gas, then that’s what they’re really talking about – those hundreds of millions of people whose lives will be at risk.” Ms O’Shanassy launched the ACF’s campaign to make the forthcoming federal election a battle of climate policy.

“My warning to those in the house up the hill is that if you ignore climate change you do so at your political peril,” she said. “We don’t want your thoughts and prayers, we want action.”

ACF aim to have one million conversations before the federal election is due in May, specifically targeting voters in three electorates – marginal Liberal seats Chisholm and Bonner, as well as the new Victorian seat of Macnamara.

Meanwhile, Australia’s mining union has urged federal and state governments to prepare for the nation’s coalfired power stations to be shut by 2050 with a comprehensive transition package for workers.

The CFMEU commissioned the University of NSW business school to write a report into the future of the industry, which employs more than 26,000 workers.

The report calls for the establishment of an independent statutory Energy Transition Authority to oversee closures and support workers in finding new jobs.