The climate crisis has intensified this year, underscoring the urgent need to slash emissions right now – there is no time to waste. We’ve once again seen countries in all corners of the globe endure extreme weather events. From ferocious wildfires to devastating floods and scorching heatwaves, the toll of climate change is all around us. Communities around the world are paying the price in impacts to their health, lives, and livelihoods.
But there is hope: with many nations and parts of our society and economy stepping up their climate commitments. Momentum for positive change is growing around the world, and here at home we are seeing more homes and businesses choose clean energy. About 40% of the electricity in our main grid now comes from renewables, and that’s doubled in just six years.
As we ring in the New Year, join us in committing to resolutions that will help to reduce Australia’s climate pollution, positively influence the national conversation on climate change, and pressure decision-makers to step up their climate game. With a federal election set for the first half of 2025, there has never been a better time to demonstrate support for urgent climate action.
Here’s our top eight suggestions for your New Year’s resolutions:
1. Take collective action
Community-led action has been a great catalyst for society-wide change in Australia. Banding together with others in our community to join a petition or protest, or contact your local MP with an email or phone call, can all be powerful ways to spark important climate conversations, and keep climate action in the public eye. Everyday Australians speaking up to support necessary climate policies and calling for far greater action will help shift the dial. It’s going to take all of us.
Here are a couple things you can do right now to encourage strong and decisive climate action that will benefit all Australians, our economy and way of life.
- Take the pledge to get your home off gas. The gas we use to cook and heat our homes is a polluting fossil fuel that’s dangerous to our health and overheating our planet. Join over 1000 others in committing to clean, electric alternatives.
2. Move your money so it doesn’t support the fossil fuel industry
Do you know where your personal finances are invested? With many banks, super funds and share portfolios still investing in coal, oil and gas projects, making informed choices about where to invest your hard-earned cash helps dial up the pressure on financial institutions to do better.
Thankfully, there are banks and super funds out there that avoid financing fossil fuels and support renewable energy and the environment. Find out where your bank stands here, and learn more about the future your banks and super are funding here.
3. Change how you get around
Personal transport is the fastest growing source of climate pollution in Australia, so rapidly reducing emissions calls for a re-think of how we get around. Cars are responsible for more than 60% of Australia’s transport pollution, and while electric vehicles (EVs) are an important piece of the puzzle, we won’t achieve our climate targets with them alone.
Wondering how to change the way you move? Here are some tips:
- Write down a list of your most common trips, and work out if there are any that are less than two kilometres. Set a goal to walk, ride, skate or roll that route more often.
- Consider your plans for the weekend – is there anywhere you could walk, ride or catch public transport to? Could you ask to meet friends closer to public transport hubs that are easier for everyone to access?
- Already using public transport? If you drive to your train station, is there any way you could catch the bus, or ride your bike there?
- Do a shoutout to your colleagues, peers or school friends to check if anyone would like to carpool – it makes the trip way more fun, after all!
- Check if you’re eligible for any public transport discounts.
- Make getting around fun by getting active together – why not ride your bike to the cafe, shops or beach, and pick up your friend along the way?
- Encourage your local council to invest in safe footpaths and cycling paths.
- If you can, consider shopping around for an electric bike, to get you further, faster. (Upside: They cost an average of just $20 a year to run!)
Choosing active ways of getting around – like walking, using a wheelchair or bike riding – and shared transport can drive down climate pollution while also making our streets quieter, our neighbourhood less congested with car traffic and our communities much more liveable.
4. Make your home more energy efficient
Electricity generation is the biggest contributor to climate change in Australia because the majority of our electricity is still made by burning fossil fuels like coal and gas. Australians are also among the biggest carbon polluters on the planet, which means there is plenty more we could be doing at home to reduce our energy consumption heading into the new year. Check out our top tips for improving your home’s energy efficiency here, and find out how much you could save in power bills and emissions each year by making basic changes around your home with our energy savings simulator.
Make the switch from gas to electric:
Gas is a polluting fossil fuel that’s driving the climate crisis. It is also harming our health and our hip pockets, as gas prices continue to rise.
Gas appliances – including stovetops, heaters and hot water systems – are an outdated technology with no place in the modern home. Fortunately, there are alternatives that are cheaper to run and better for the planet and our health. Use our savings calculator to find out how much you could save by switching your appliances and getting off gas, and join Sarah Wilson in taking the pledge to get off gas here.
5. Ensure the climate information you consume is credible and science based
A lot of climate crap is circulated these days by politicians, corporations and people who benefit from spreading lies. One effective way to inoculate yourself from disinformation is to take stock of where you get your news and who you trust as a reliable source. Have a good look at what sort of news content you’re accessing and think about where it comes from, what vested interests or personal bias may be influencing what you’re consuming, and whether the claims can be fact-checked.
Make sure you keep a critical eye on the accounts and pages you’re following on social media too.
WHO CAN YOU TRUST ON CLIMATE, ENERGY aND EXTREME WEATHER INFORMATION?
Here are our top pics:
- Bureau Of Meteorology
- CSIRO
- Climate Council – we post daily about the latest climate and energy developments in Australia and the world – you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tiktok and Youtube, or sign up to the Climate Council mailing list for the latest info straight in your inbox.
- A recent example of our easy to understand content:
6. Make climate action your lasting legacy
For many Australians, the New Year is an important time to take stock, catch up on life admin and revisit finances. It has also become common to reflect on our legacies at this time of year – and, for some, that means looking into leaving a charitable bequest.
To help make things easier, we’ve partnered with Gathered Here, Australia’s most trusted online Will provider, to offer supporters access to write a free, simple online Will with unlimited updates for life!
what are legacy gifts?
Legacy gifts are a vital way of supporting the causes you care about. In fact, around 20 percent of charity income in Australia comes from the gifts people make in their Wills!
After taking care of your loved ones, you can choose to include a gift to the Climate Council in your Will. Every gift, no matter the size, contributes to vital climate action and creating a vibrant and safe planet for generations to come.For more information, visit our website and download our free gifts in Wills guide. Whether you need assistance in updating your existing Will or creating a new one, we are here to support you every step of the way.
7. Have more chats about climate change with your nearest and dearest
You’re going to be having lots of fun chats over the summer holidays with friends and familiy, and that includes conversations about climate too.
These chats can be tricky, so here are a few top tips on the best way to navigate climate convo’s:
- Find common values. What is the thing that you and the person you are talking to care about? THAT is where you start the conversation, by sharing that interest/love/value you hold dearly and explaining how climate change impacts or threatens it, or how climate solutions can help protect it.
- Come armed with the facts. There’s a whole lot of misinformation out there that gets peddled to confuse, distract or delay climate action. So, point people to trustworthy sources of information and refer to one or two facts that are compelling and easy to remember.
- Keep it local. It’s important to use examples that are local and relevant to whoever you are speaking to, so your conversation buddy can connect with the issue. Think local, rather than global.
- Don’t reinforce a false debate. Scientists agree that burning coal, oil and gas is overheating our planet and causing worsening extreme weather events. Any implication of a “debate” opens the door for people to think there’s still a question mark over what’s driving climate change when the science is unequivocal.
- Focus on the solutions. Fun fact: we actually already have the solutions we need to solve the climate crisis. And these solutions come with HUGE benefits for our health, our communities, having safe and liveable homes, our way of life, and our back pockets. It’s a win-win-win-win-win situation.
You can find our climate conversation guides on how to have impactful climate conversations here.
@theclimatecouncil Not sure how to respond to anti-climate action arguments? We’ve got you covered.
♬ original sound – The Climate Council
8. Power our work from now until election day
Welcoming the New Year is an opportunity to stop and reflect; and to appreciate how important it is to protect what we have for the next generation.
The truth is, the burning of polluting coal, oil, and gas is turning up the heat on the cities and towns we call home, while unscrupulous politicians, multinational coal, oil and gas corporations and their lobbyists are deliberately trying to slow things down so they can keep profiting from climate-wrecking pollution as long as they possibly can.
Our next election is critical in the race to secure the stable climate we all depend on.
The outcome will determine whether we have a Federal Parliament that drives the rapid cuts to climate pollution we need this decade. Or one that delays or even reverses climate action, pushing us past irreversible tipping points and unleashing climate catastrophe.
The fossil fuel industry has deep pockets. We have you. So, while you slow down over the New Year break and contemplate your resolutions – we’d invite you to set-up a regular gift to power our work between now and election day.
