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CPRS a vital lever

Right now, Australian’s elected politicians will decide our fate when they vote on one of the most important pieces of legislation to come before the Federal parliament in recent history.

All of us will be directly affected by what is about to happen when the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is re-introduced into Federal Parliament.

Most of us will not be in Canberra and most of us do not hold public office. But we can – and must - exercise our right to tell our elected leaders to act on our behalf. I am one of the 76% of the Australian population who is seriously concerned about the climate crisis.

If you are worried about our economy, if you are worried about what we are doing to our children’s future – now is the time to do what you can and tell your leaders to strengthen and pass the CPRS. Right now.

Why? The CPRS is a vital lever to reducing Australia’s carbon emissions. Recently, the coalition put forward a number of amendments to the legislation, including handing out a further $8.8 Billion in compensation to big polluters in the first five years.

These changes should be rejected as they ‘brown down’ the scheme to the point of being near useless. However with a strong CPRS and carbon reduction target in place Australia will become a world leader in renewable clean energy generation. This new market comes with thousands of new clean energy jobs for our children – jobs that would otherwise go off shore.

Recent science says the climate crisis is relentless. The signs are all around us. Scientists are planning to freeze coral tissue from the Great Barrier Reef, in a bid to save a sample of what looks likely to be destroyed.

How do we stop this destruction? Agree legislation to reduce our portion of the carbon pollution emissions currently pumped into the environment that sustains us. With that in place Australia can take its rightful position at the negotiations in Copenhagen in December – as a lead nation forging the way to a global agreement to solve to the climate crisis.

The scientific community worldwide tells us that the world’s carbon pollution emissions must stabilise by 2015 if we are to avoid a global temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius. 2015 is only six years away.

Some politicians are disingenuously stating that concern for climate change is no longer a issue for the public. This is simply not true. They use the same logic to dismiss public concern on climate change, as they do on climate records themselves. Polls showed that concern for climate change was very high in 2007 in the run up to the federal election. That polls now show that this concern is not as high two years later, more represents that the community feels the world is now taking the issue seriously, not that we no longer believe the world is warming.

I have asked my MP to act on my behalf next week when Federal Parliament votes on the CPRS and tell the people who hold our fate in their hands to take the first steps toward a bright and prosperous low carbon future.
Yours truly,

Damien Quinnell
Climate Change Presenter
Camden NSW

 

 

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