5000 of our community signed our open letter to all political candidates at the 2016 national Australian election. An open letter to all political candidates at the 2016 national election, 1 Million Women is calling for a national consensus and broad political agreement across party lines at the 2016 Australian election, and beyond, for urgent and sustained action on:
• Cutting carbon pollution – Australia must be a global leader in ratifying and implementing the historic Paris agreement, with a commitment to keep global warming to below 1.5 degrees, with no new coal mines, a target for 100% clean energy by 2040, and a clear trajectory to a net zero carbon economy by 2050.
• Saving the Reef – Australia must elevate protecting the Great Barrier Reef to the status of a national emergency with an urgent escalation of climate action at its core.
• A commitment to gender equality – Equal participation for women is essential for the successful initiation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of climate change policies, and indeed to all significant decision-making. (An Australian Cabinet with only a single woman, as we had from 2013 to 2015, must never happen again.) Already 2016 is shaping up to be another ‘hottest year on record’, and the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef is a devastating sign of the climate emergency we face.
Climate change affects our economy and jobs, and our health and well-being. It affects natural biodiversity and all living things. It’s time our leaders stand together for decisive climate action. We have the solutions and need the political will to match. We call on all political parties – and all elected politicians and candidates – to devote all of the resources necessary to ensure a livable planet, and to protect vulnerable people from the climate threat that’s already locked in, with much worse to come.
How you set yourselves to address the climate crisis will be critical to how we vote. ADD YOUR NAME in support of 1 Million Women’s election priorities and if you want them strongly communicated to all political candidates.