In the past 18 months, we’ve endured a lot. We’ve witnessed some of the worst bushfires in Australian history, had our lives ground to a halt by a global pandemic and watched in horror as unprecedented flooding gripped regional NSW.
The climate crisis is here, and we are already living through the impacts. Extreme weather events are becoming regular, heatwaves are increasing in severity, and month after month temperature records are being broken. Yet despite all this, the Australian government refuses to set emission reduction targets, and continues to subsidise and give handouts to the fossil fuel industry.
As we enter the recovery phase from Covid-19 and work to rebuild our economy, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create renewable, fair and sustainable jobs to carry Australia into the future. Despite this, the Morrison government is pushing ahead with a gas-fired recovery. They are increasing subsidies to the gas industry to ramp up exploration and extraction of gas, risking locking in polluting gas energy for decades to come. This will only worsen the climate crisis.
Gas will not move our country forward. As well as the gas industry generating among the lowest number of jobs in the energy industry, a gas-fired “recovery” will push us further into the climate crisis. Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy generation available, offers clean jobs that will fast-track solutions to the climate crisis and will revive Australia’s economy for many years to come, setting us up for the future.
On May 21, concerned for their future, school students from across the country, together with unions, First Peoples, frontline communities and businesses are striking to demand that the Morrison government “Fund Our Future, Not Gas”.
It is time to listen to and resource Indigenous-led solutions. It is time to fund clean jobs that support communities. It is time to transition the economy and communities to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
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May 21, 12pm, Sydney Town Hall (youth-led service beforehand at Pitt Street Uniting Church, 10am for 10.15am start). See you there! Find out more about SS4C and the May 21 strike by visiting www.ss4c.info/may21.
