2020-2021: Impact Summary
Over the past year, the Climate Council’s 500,000 strong community has been key to driving change. Despite many challenges, this year has been one of our most powerful to date.
Here are just some of our notable achievements this year, made possible by our community, and our collective commitment to demanding urgent climate action at all levels.
ELCA: Response to the Black Summer bushfires
Throughout the Black Summer bushfires, we shaped public understanding of the clear link between climate change and more damaging, dangerous bushfire seasons.
And, as recovery began, we helped shape Australia’s response. The Climate Council worked with Emergency Leaders for Climate Action to bring together a diverse range of experts and community leaders at the National Bushfire and Climate Summit.
Out of this came the Bushfire & Climate Plan, containing 165 recommendations to protect Australian communities from the impacts of worsening extreme weather.
Many of these recommendations influenced the outcomes of the Bushfire Royal Commission, and its clear acknowledgement that climate change is leading to more dangerous fire conditions. Since then, we’ve been holding the Federal Government accountable to implementing the Commission’s findings.
We launched Hitting Home: The Compounding Costs of Climate Inaction, which detailed the significant cost of climate change-fuelled extreme weather in 2019-20, a year which saw unprecedented fires, extreme heat, powerful cyclones and devastating floods in Australia and around the world.
Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA) are continuing to advocate for strong, swift action to protect Australian communities from increasingly dangerous extreme weather events. In April 2021, ELCA launched the Community Protection Pledge, a set of 10 commitments that Federal MPs can pledge to implement to protect their local communities.
HAS YOUR MP TAKEN THE PLEDGE? FIND OUT HERE.
Together with Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, we recently held the First Nations Climate Justice Panel – a discussion on how First Nations communities are leading the fight for climate justice, and why First Nations voices must be centred in the national climate conversation.
Watch the full discussion below or click here to read and share our summary.
Clean Jobs Plan: Clean, secure jobs for Australians
Following the pandemic, as the Federal Government’s intentions to expand new fossil fuel projects became clear, we worked hard to steer the national conversation towards climate action. First releasing our Primed for Action: A Resilient Recovery for Australia report, followed by the Clean Jobs Plan, we kept climate action in the headlines, and positioned renewables and clean energy as the key to our economic recovery.
Our Clean Jobs Plan identified where more than 76,000 clean jobs could be quickly created – jobs that get our economy back up and running and tackle climate change at the same time.
Since its release, the Clean Jobs Plan has influenced more than 45 strong policy outcomes on renewable energy and climate solutions from State and Territory Governments.
Solutions such as:
- NSW’s ambitious Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap: a plan to build renewable energy zones in NSW and bring 12 gigawatts of renewable energy and 2 gigawatts of storage online by 2030. This Roadmap is expected to create thousands of jobs and deliver some of the cheapest electricity in the developed world to NSW.
- Victoria’s $797 million Energy Efficiency Package: to help Victorians upgrade the efficiency of their homes, ramp up rooftop solar, bring down power bills and create thousands of jobs for the state.
- South Australia’s $3 billion Goyder South Project – which will build up to 1200MW of wind energy, 600MW of solar energy, and up to 900MW/1800MWh of battery capacity.
Queensland: Supercharging the Sunshine State
Through our Leaders and Legends: Thousands of Clean Jobs for Queenslanders and Smart Solutions to Supercharge Queensland reports, we’ve focused particularly on Queensland, where we can drive significant change.
Queensland has enormous potential to lead Australia in the switch to renewables, producing and exporting clean energy to the world.
Recently, the Queensland State Government has announced:
- A $2 billion Queensland Renewable Energy and Hydrogen Jobs Fund. These investments could create a pipeline of long-term jobs in clean industries for generations of Queenslanders.
- $145 million to build Renewable Energy Zones and transmission infrastructure in key areas across North Queensland, Central Queensland and South-West Queensland. These projects have the potential to unlock new wind and solar investment in the state while tackling the long-term problem of climate change, creating jobs, and providing clean, cheap power to more Australians.
Click here to read more about the Smart Solutions to Supercharge Queensland, and if you live in Queensland, click here to Email Your State MP:
Gas: Fighting back against fossil fuels
In the past year, the Climate Council has released two important reports to smack down misinformation from the fossil fuel industry; Passing Gas: Why Renewables are the Future, and Kicking the Gas Habit: How Gas is Harming our Health.
These reports kickstarted a national conversation about the true nature of gas, and its impacts on our health, homes, and energy future.
Together with our Climate Council community, we’ve been actively rebuffing plans for new gas projects – making powerful, science-backed submissions, signed by tens of thousands of supporters, against both the Narrabri Gas and Kurri Kurri Gas Projects in New South Wales. Our research and campaigns teams, along with our expert Climate Councillors, have made numerous submissions throughout the year to government inquiries and independent reviews, often providing policy analysis, recommendations and the latest information on topics such as extreme weather, energy, and climate solutions.
When the Federal Government announced plans to spend $600 million in public money to build a new gas-fired power station in Kurri Kurri, we hit back hard in the media, and online. We’ve sustained pressure on key decision-makers, and moved the dial when it comes to Australian attitudes towards gas and its smarter, better and cheaper clean energy alternatives.
Today, only 12% of Australians prefer gas over renewables to lead our economic recovery.
The Cities Power Partnership: Accelerating local action
As Australia’s largest network of local governments committed to climate action, the Climate Council’s Cities Power Partnership (CPP) is celebrating and accelerating the emissions reduction and clean energy successes of Australian towns and cities.
In the past year, the CPP has grown to represent more than 147 councils across Australia and more than 50% of Australians. Now, it is empowering councils to work together to implement emissions-busting solutions to the climate crisis that not only protect communities, but help them thrive.
Solutions like the:
- Cities Power Partnership National Summit: which brought together more than 300 council representatives to feature some of Australia’s biggest and best emissions-reductions solutions, like the Victoria Energy Collaboration Project, which by July, will see 45 percent of Victorian council energy come from clean wind.
- Hunter Joint Organisation: All ten local councils in the NSW Hunter region have joined the Cities Power Partnership to tackle the challenge of changing global energy markets and climate change head on. These councils have signed an agreement to accelerate clean energy initiatives and jobs to set the region up for a prosperous future.
- Extreme Weather Statement: 17 Mayors’ and Councillors from NSW & Queensland joined together to call for the Federal Government to recognise the spiralling cost to communities of climate change-fuelled extreme weather.
Urgency: Aim High, Go Fast
Our landmark report, Aim High Go Fast: Why Emissions Need to Plummet this Decade, was a sobering reminder that any further delay to action on climate change will have stark consequences for our lives, homes, health, and precious ecosystems.
We worked with leading climate scientists to identify the need for a strong, 75% emissions reduction target for 2030, and are actively pushing for solutions to help Australia reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2035.
SIGN THE PETITION: 75% by 2030.
And for an in-depth breakdown of the report, and why we had to tell this important story, watch our Special Briefing on the Aim High Go Fast Report with Climate Councillors Professor Will Steffen, and Professor Lesley Hughes, Head of Strategic Communications, Dinah Arndt and Acting CEO Dr. Martin Rice.
Trusted Voices: Empowering people to lead, act and advocate
With the support of our community, we’re empowering hundreds of Australians to stand up and speak out about climate change, its impacts and solutions.
From generating more than 11,000 media articles across a broad range of national and international publications, to training diverse spokespeople to tell their stories and champion the solutions in the media, we are ensuring the call for urgent action remains front and centre in national climate conversation.
Through strategic media interventions and a nimble ability to respond quickly to reactive opportunities, we unpack the science for the public, media and politicians alike. With an aim to build foundational knowledge, counter misinformation, and champion the solutions at all levels, we spring into action whenever there is an opportunity to draw national attention to the climate crisis and the urgent need to ramp up solutions.
After UNESCO’s draft decision to list the Great Barrier Reef as ‘In Danger’, Climate Councillors Professor Will Steffen and Professor Lesley Hughes were prominent in the media – explaining why climate change is the biggest threat to the Reef, why this decision was a long time coming, and what we must do to protect this iconic national treasure from further damage.
And this year, the Climate Council has grown to include new expert voices to speak on issues at the cutting edge of the climate conversation. If you haven’t met economist Nikki Hutley, security expert Cheryl Durrant, or Dr Kate Charlesworth yet, below are just some of our recent media hits:
- Nikki Hutley in this New Daily article: Climate change inaction costing Australia more than fossil fuels bring in
- Cheryl Durrant authored this Conversation article: Climate change is a security threat the government keeps ignoring. We’ll show up empty handed to yet another global summit
- And Dr Kate Charlesworth’s piece in the Canberra Times: Health sector can save lives by reducing its carbon footprint
Sports Report: Calling time on climate inaction
We’re also constantly looking for new ways to talk to new audiences about climate change. Take our Game, Set, Match: Calling time on Climate Inaction report, which highlighted the impact of increasing heatwaves and extreme weather on local, national and international sporting codes. By elevating voices like former Wallaby David Pocock, former world champion surfer Ace Buchan, and former Australian netballer Amy Steele, among others, we engaged a whole new set of people on the different ways climate change might impact them in coming years.
Our Community: The key to driving change
Our community is the force behind our impact and the reason we do what we do. From signing petitions and sharing our resources online, to sending more than 25,000 emails to Members of Parliament, our community backs us at every turn and enables our strategic campaigns and projects.
It’s thanks to our community that the Climate Council has significantly increased its size – and impact – over the past year, to match the scale of the climate crisis.
Take our two teams of Tassie Trekkers – who collectively raised over $145,000 to power key Climate Council campaigns, all while exploring the Tasmanian wilderness with our Climate Councillors Prof. Will Steffen and Prof. Lesley Hughes.
Or our team of supporters and staff who really went the extra mile – taking on the 14km City2Surf challenge, and collectively raising more than $2400 for the Climate Council’s extreme weather work!
Read Will’s story about his time in Tasmania, and find out more about how to be involved in the Climate Council’s work: Into the Depths of the Tarkine: A Tassie Trek for Climate Action.
