Our Strategy
While we know the system as a whole is pushing us towards collapse, we must target the number one driver of the climate crisis – the burning of fossil fuels – in order to define strategic and achievable goals and build social movement power.
To build social movement power, we need to use citizens’ greatest superpower: civil resistance. Civil resistance is the sustained, nonviolent, escalatory use of disruption by ordinary people to win against injustice.
From the 40 hour working week, to the vote for women, from U.S. civil rights to Indian independence, to fights against uranium mining in Kakadu, the Franklin Dam and gas fracking, civil resistance has time and again brought people-powered victories against the odds. It’s brought us so much that we value in our society today.
A Landmark Struggle in Newcastle
We have chosen Newcastle coal port as the most strategic site for a landmark struggle for climate justice on this continent. As the world’s largest coal port, it is a huge and compelling target, responsible for about 1% of global carbon emissions. Newcastle is also a progressive city, with a proud union history, a strong sense of community and is accessible to the major population centres of Australia.
Supported by a National Movement
Like the campaigns to save the Franklin River and to stop uranium mining in Jabiluka, our landmark struggle in Newcastle is being supported by a rapidly growing national movement. There are currently seven main Rising Tide groups across the country (as well as more smaller hubs beginning to emerge) organising to build unprecedented social movement power.
Get in touch with your local hub here: risingtide.org.au/contact
Demands
We demand that our state and federal governments:
1. Immediately cancel all new fossil fuel projects.
2. Tax fossil fuel export profits at 75% to fund community and industrial transition, and pay for climate loss and damage.
3. End all coal exports from Newcastle – the world’s largest coal port – by 2030.
2-Part Plan
We will need thousands of ordinary citizens engaging in waves of sustained disruption to challenge and destroy the social licence of Newcastle’s coal export industry and force our governments to concede to our demands. But in order to have enough power to sustain this disruption and withstand repression from the police and state, we have a 2-part plan to first build our numbers and capacity, before initiating a “civil resistance” phase.