The Greens say around 10,000 people have backed their push for the federal government to declare a climate emergency, one day after the party said Canberra should formally recognise climate breakdown as an existential threat.
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The petition, launched Wednesday morning, asks punters to call on the Australian Parliament to consider the drastic impacts of climate change at home and abroad when passing legislation.
“Unless you’re prepared to acknowledge that we do face an urgent challenge, then you’re simply not going to deal with what we know comes from the breakdown of our climate,” Australian Greens’ federal leader Richard Di Natale told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
Di Natale said the proposed declaration will act as a “critical first step” to realign the governmental response to climate change.
“At the moment we have politicians that continue to ignore the problem, who are not going to see the sort of transition that’s required,” Di Natale said.
The push comes after numerous local jurisdictions including the City of Melbourne and the City of Sydney issued their own climate emergency declarations.
But Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley lashed out similar council declarations last month, telling The West Australian “ratepayers would expect to see their councils leading practical action on local environmental issues and focusing on things they can address locally.”
At time of publishing, Minister Ley has not responded to PEDESTRIAN.TV’s questions regarding the petition.
Di Natale doesn’t believe that viewpoint is held across the entire Coalition, and voiced his confidence that Australia could mirror declarations made by nations like the UK and Canada.
“It’s true that there are very strong voices within the Coalition that simply don’t accept that climate change is real, let alone an urgent problem, [but] it’s also true that there are voices inside the Coalition that have a different view,” he said.
The Greens leader said any declaration will act primarily as “an acknowledgement” and would not enforce new climate-centric policies, but won’t downplay the importance of the issue.
“This is not something that’s a problem in ten year’s time or in twenty years time, this is a problem right now for each and every one of us,” he said.
PEDESTRIAN.TV has contacted Shadow Environment Minister Terri Butler for comment.
