Larissa Baldwin Roberts from Common Threads held a press conference a little earlier with some of the participants of the Climate Crisis summit held yesterday (which was supported by The Australia Institute) which brought together First Nations leaders, climate experts and advocates to talk about what actually needs to be done for Australia and its communities to navigate the climate crisis (which isn’t something off into the future – we are living it now)

Serena Joyner (the CEO of Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action) was one of the attendees and said:

Australia has always had bushfires, but climate change is making them worse. Climate change is making the deadly and almost impossible to defend, and that’s at 1.2 or 1.4 degrees of warming. We simply cannot afford more global warming and have safe communities.

And that’s why bushfire survivors for climate action exists. 

Because we know through Black Summer just how bad catastrophic fires can already be. And with the kind of warming we’re seeing, a black summer will be normal in the year 2040. And beyond that, it will be a cool summer.

That’s why we’re calling on the government to stop the approval of coal and gas projects. Stop the approval of coal and gas projects, and make a clear timeline to phase out coal and gas production and exports. 

Co-CEO of the Australia Institute Leanne Minshull:

We also need a plan to rapidly phase out of fossil fuels, and this is something that we can do apart from our combined and, and, apart from our shared determination to see the end of fossil fuels. We also shared some emotions after hearing from frontline communities, scientists, firefighters and unionists and those emotions that we were all feeling.