FRANKSTON and peninsula residents rallied to show their love for the environment on Valentine’s Day last Saturday.
The rally, attended by about 50 people, was part of Global Divestment Day, an inaugural worldwide day of action to pressure banks to stop financing and investing in the fossil fuels industry, organised by the 360.org activist group (‘Banking on climate action change’, The Times 9/2/15).
The environmental group said more than 450 events were held in 60 countries last weekend.
Frankston activist Claire Dawson, who co-organised the Frankston rally at White St Mall with Alison Bennett, said “the political responses to climate change have been too slow, and in Australia they now seem to be going in reverse”.
“If we are going to keep fossil fuels in the ground then we need to stop investing in organisations that want to keep profiting from digging them up and selling them.
“Fossil fuels have served us reasonably well for a long time, but the science is increasingly clear. We must invest in renewable power, energy efficiency measures and sustainable, clean technologies if we’re going to have any chance of handing a habitable planet with a safe climate on to future generations.”
Ms Dawson said the highlight of the Frankston event was a song, poem and speech by a Year 7 Samoan girl concerned about how climate change is impacting her Island homeland.
Taking action to combat climate change remains a political point of contention between the major parties in Australia despite scientists warning the situation is increasingly urgent with each passing year.
In the UK last week the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats agreed to work together to combat climate change no matter the result of this year’s general election due to be held in May, taking politics out of the climate change battle.
As part of the tripartisan commitment to act on climate change the UK political parties vowed to end coal burning to generate power unless new “clean-up technology” is used.
Earlier this month Guardian Australia reported Australia’s US Consul to New York, former Howard government minister Nick Minchin, lobbied foreign banks to finance the contentious Abbot Point coal terminal in Queensland situated near the Great Barrier Reef.
Friends of the Earth affiliate Market Forces made a freedom of information request and discovered Mr Minchin used media releases by Flinders MP and federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt as part of his pitch to try to persuade the overseas banks to invest at Abbot Point.
Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and other US financial institutions reportedly have decided against financing the Abbot Point coal project.
Major Australian banks remain keen to finance the project.
Mr Minchin is a high-profile climate change sceptic and was reportedly the prime mover behind the decision to oust former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull in favour of Tony Abbott in 2009.
His opposition to Mr Turnbull’s support for an emissions trading scheme is believed to have been the catalyst for Mr Minchin’s move to change the Liberal Party’s leadership.
In a statement to The Times, Mr Hunt said “the matter of investment is a matter for others”.
“The Abbot Point proposal is not a federal government plan. It is a Queensland Labor Party plan and a private proposal. It was proposed at 20 times the size under the Queensland ALP.
“The federal Coalition government has put an end to the five massive dredge disposal plans for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park that were inherited from the federal ALP government. In short we have gone from five massive dredge disposal plans in the marine park under the ALP to none under us.
“The Coalition is ending the century-old practice of dumping in the marine park – a practice that was fully embraced by Labor governments at both a federal and state level. I am enshrining this ban in law. This is the first time that any federal minister has ever done this.”
Activist group GetUp issued ‘a rebuttal to Environment Minister Greg Hunt’ in January regarding the Abbot Point project.
“Labor have been historically bad. But it was the Coalition government who approved dumping at sea at Abbot Point – their position only changed after two separate legal challenges funded by GetUp members and intense community campaigning made the plans to dump at sea at Abbot Point a politically disastrous position for the government,” the GetUp statement said.
Ms Dawson said Mr Minchin’s lobbying efforts is an example of “our politicians’ attitudes” to climate change.
“It’s arguable whether such high-level discussions between our politicians and banks are ethical – they think it’s in our national interest but I guess that’s the crux of the debate. Is it really in our national interest to be pursuing things like this?”
Activist group 360.org will continue its global campaign to persuade financial institutions to divest funds away from fossil fuels businesses and a second Global Divestment Day will be held in February next year.
