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On Monday July 13, Nobel prize-winner Al Gore was keynote speaker at an event launching the development of a plan to rapidly reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Gore is helped to launch Safe Climate Australia to 1,000 of Australia’s business, industry, community and government leaders at an invitation-only breakfast at Melbourne’s Docklands. Emergency service workers also joined Al Gore on stage to launch ‘Run for a Safe Climate’ an 8,000-kilometre run by emergency services workers linking Australia’s major ecosystems and agricultural areas at risk from global warming, including the Great Barrier Reef, the Australian Alps and the Murray Darling Basin. About Safe Climate Australia Safe Climate Australia is a non-government organisation formed and steered by a foundation group of concerned scientists, community and business leaders with a shared understanding of the scientific and moral imperatives for emergency action to restore a safe climate. Global warming impacts threaten the productivity and health of Australia’s major ecosystems, the prosperity of vital sectors of the economy such as agriculture, forestry, tourism and infrastructure, and security of water supply to the Australian population. The observed rate of global warming and its impacts are generating deepening concern across the international climate research community, and are clearly indicating that all nations and governments need to rise to the challenge of achieving far more rapid decarbonization of economic activity than previously thought necessary, as well as sequestering sufficient atmospheric carbon to revert to a safe level of concentration. Safe Climate Australia will build on a range of international innovation and transition projects such as Repower America, which target energy efficiency and renewable generation, a modern national smart grid, and electrification of transport as key actions in addressing global warming, energy security and peak oil. Inspired by these projects, the purpose of Safe Climate Australia is to identify and catalyse action on the societal transformations and solutions needed to achieve a safe climate for Australia, and for the planet, at emergency speed. The structural change achieved in the next ten years will be crucial. The Safe Climate Australia work program will focus on the delivery of two key projects: - The Climate Science Imperatives Project: Reviewing the most recent evidence on climate change trends, risks and scenarios.
- The Australian Safe Climate Transition Plan: A whole-of-society plan for transitioning to a net zero-carbon economy at emergency speed and implementing large-scale sequestration of existing atmospheric carbon pollution.
Safe Climate Australia aims to be a replicable exemplar project, inspiring similar initiatives around the world, and to contribute to a growing global consensus about the scale and speed of actions needed to restore a safe climate.
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