'Can't Rely On Governments Alone': Atlassian Leads Push For Staff To Attend Global Climate Strike

Sydney Morning Herald - Michael Koziol

Tech giant Atlassian will encourage its 3500 employees to take part in this month's global strike for climate action in a move it hopes will reverberate through corporate Australia.
The firm's billionaire co-founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes, said companies had to take their share of responsibility for the "climate crisis" and warned Australians in particular could not rely on governments "at all" to address the problem.

Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes says Australians can't rely on government "at all" on climate  change. Credit: Steven Siewert

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, he said prominent politicians such as Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who has been critical of corporate activism in the past, should "stick to [their] knitting", something Mr Dutton has previously told chief executives to do.
Millions are expected to walk out of work or school on September 20 as part of "Strike 4 Climate Action" – inspired by 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl and activist Greta Thunberg – to demand global action on climate change ahead of a major United Nations summit in New York the following week.
A dozen other firms will support staff who wish to take part in the strike, including fossil-free superannuation fund Future Super, which will shut its doors on the day, and reusable coffee cup company KeepCup. Atlassian employees can use part of the week's leave they receive each year to do charity work.
Mr Cannon-Brookes said Australia had "no credible climate policy whatsoever", noting carbon emissions continued to rise despite the Morrison government's insistence it will meet its 2030 targets under the global Paris Agreement.


Prime Minister Scott Morrison will forge ahead with his government's climate change policy. Hear what he has said on the topic, after his election win.

"Politicians can try to put whatever spin on it they want," he said, referring to Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor's recent explanation that emissions increases were due to growth in liquefied natural gas exports. Mr Taylor in June said the figures did not acknowledge Australia's contribution to lowering emissions in other countries through exports of LNG, which creates fewer emissions than coal.
"I was very amused by the spin that absent that - the increase in LNG exports - [emissions] would have gone down," Mr Cannon-Brookes said.
Coalition ministers have previously criticised student climate strikes and corporate activism. Resources Minister Matt Canavan warned striking students would only learn "how to join the dole queue", while Mr Dutton said it was "unacceptable that people would use companies and the money of publicly listed companies to throw their weight around".

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But Mr Cannon-Brookes said as corporations were directly affected by climate change, it was in their own capitalistic interests to encourage stronger political action.
"Corporations have to deal with it; they have to deal with their own impact and their own footprint as companies," he said.
"It's a crisis that demands leadership and action. But we can't rely on governments alone - sadly, in Australia, we can't rely on them at all."
Mr Dutton has previously suggested chief executives wishing to debate "moral issues" such as same-sex marriage should "become a politician, resign your job at $5 million a year, come on to $250,000, if they can tolerate that".
But Mr Cannon-Brookes rejected the idea of entering politics. "I'm a little too honest for that. I'd be a rubbish politician," he said.
In addition to supporting the strike, Atlassian will screen Damon Gameau's climate change documentary 2040 at its offices in Sydney, San Francisco and Austin.

Links

• Church backs climate strike for its 10,000 students
• 'No other way': Student climate activist Greta Thunberg's strike call
• Global Climate Strike Sep. 20–27
• School Strike 4 Climate Australia
• FridaysForFuture
• Climate change protest will lead to dole queue, minister tells students
• Australia's greenhouse emissions set new seven-year highs on gas boom

Climate Change: Hungry Nations Add The Least To Global CO2

BBC - Matt McGrath

Burundi has contributed little to rising temperatures, but will be hit hard by some of the effects. Getty Images

The impoverished African nation of Burundi comes top of a list of the world's most food-insecure countries says Christian Aid.
The charity argues that Burundi and others are now keenly feeling the impacts of climate change on their food production systems.
But Burundi's contribution to rising temperatures is marginal, say experts.
In fact, the annual carbon emissions of one Briton is equal to the CO2 produced by over 200 Burundians.
Scientists and government officials from all over the world are meeting in Geneva this week to consider how climate change impacts the land and how the lands and forests impact the climate.
Their detailed report will be released on Thursday.
However, researchers at development charity Christian Aid have put together a study showing how that climate change is now having a disproportionate impact on the food systems of the countries that have done least to produce the carbon emissions that are driving up temperatures.

Burundians produce 0.027 tonnes of CO2 per person per year. Someone living in Saudi Arabia produces the same as 718 people in Burundi. The equivalent number for the US would be 581 and for Russia 454.

Their study says that the top 10 most food insecure countries all generate less than half a tonne of CO2 per person, and in total just 0.08% of global emissions.

Interactive tool: How much warmer is your city? Select from 1,000 major cities around the world

As well as Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Yemen and Sierra Leone make up the top five countries.
The rest of the top 10 includes Chad, Malawi, Haiti, Niger and Zambia.
Burundians produce 0.027 tonnes of CO2 per person per year. Someone living in Saudi Arabia produces the same as 718 people in Burundi. The equivalent number for the US would be 581 and for Russia 454.
The report's authors draw a clear link between rising global temperatures and increasing food security issues.
"Our research shows that rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are reducing the nutritional quality of the food we eat and that the most vulnerable people to these impacts are those least responsible for rising global CO2 concentrations," said Dr Samuel Myers, principal research scientist at Harvard University's department of environmental health.
"From this, and other research, what is quite clear is that climate change is not only a global health crisis, it is a moral crisis."
Other researchers say that the report on food insecurity is a warning for rich and poor alike, that climate change is having profound effects on our ability to feed the planet.
"These are warning signals that all of us ignore at our peril, for agriculture ultimately is one of the most threatened of our economic sectors and most fundamental for the healthy functioning of our societies and our communities," said Dr Doreen Stabinsky, professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, US, who was not involved with the study.
"Both the Christian Aid report and the upcoming IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land begin to make clear how serious a threat this is, and how urgently we need to act."

Links

• Climate activists glue themselves to bank
• UK birds 'winners and losers' of climate change
• Drought-tolerant barley could future-proof whisky
• Extinction Rebellion 'grew from bus lane protest'
• Climate protesters set up camp on city centre road
• Amazon fires: How bad have they got?
• Great Barrier Reef outlook is 'very poor'
• Big lifestyle changes 'needed to cut emissions'
• 'This is a fight across borders, across continents'
• Stop abusing land, scientists warn
• July confirmed as hottest month on record

Australian Medical Association Declares Climate Change A Health Emergency

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Exclusive: AMA points to ‘clear scientific evidence indicating severe impacts for our patients and communities’

AMA president Tony Bartone says climate change will affect health by increasing the spread of infectious diseases and through more extreme weather. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

The Australian Medical Association has formally declared climate change a health emergency, pointing to “clear scientific evidence indicating severe impacts for our patients and communities now and into the future”.
The AMA’s landmark shift, delivered by a motion of the body’s federal council, brings the organisation into line with forward-leaning positions taken by the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and Doctors for the Environment Australia.
The American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians recognised climate change as a health emergency in June 2019, and the British Medical Association the following month declared a climate emergency and committed to campaign for carbon neutrality by 2030.
The World Health Organisation has recognised since 2015 that climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century, and argued the scientific evidence for that assessment is “overwhelming”.
The AMA has recognised the health risks of climate change since 2004. Having now formally recognised that climate change is a health emergency, the peak organisation representing doctors in Australia is calling on the Morrison government to promote an active transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy; adopt mitigation targets within an Australian carbon budget; promote the health benefits of addressing climate change; and develop a national strategy for health and climate change.
The AMA president, Tony Bartone, argues the scientific evidence is clear. “There is no doubt that climate change is a health emergency. The AMA accepts the scientific evidence on climate change and its impact on human health and human wellbeing,” he says.
Bartone says the climate science suggests warming will affect human health and wellbeing “by increasing the environment and situations in which infectious diseases can be transmitted, and through more extreme weather events, particularly heatwaves”.
“Climate change will cause higher mortality and morbidity from heat stress,” the AMA president says. “Climate change will cause injury and mortality from increasingly severe weather events. Climate change will cause increases in the transmission of vector-borne diseases. Climate change will cause food insecurity resulting from declines in agricultural outputs. Climate change will cause a higher incidence of mental ill-health.
“These effects are already being observed internationally and in Australia.”
Bartone told Guardian Australia the motion adopted by the federal council had followed an ongoing discussion among stakeholders, and medical practitioners within the AMA membership.
Health and medical groups, including Doctors for the Environment, the Climate and Health Alliance, the Royal Australian College of Physicians, and the Australian Medical Students’ Association wrote an open letter to all political parties in April pointing out the “significant and profound impacts climate change has on the health of people and our health system”.
The AMA president said the decision to pass the motion followed on from those events both domestically and internationally, and was “pretty much unanimous” internally. “I don’t recall anyone speaking against it,” he said.
Asked whether the current government was pursuing ambitious enough policy action to combat the risks of climate change, which the Morrison government argues it is, Bartone said “it’s really difficult to say because this issue is clouded in conjecture and conflicting reports”.
He said all of the political groups in the Australian parliament had a responsibility to move past the toxic partisan politics that had characterised the debate and find durable solutions to a difficult public policy challenge.
Bartone said the AMA would continue to assess the evidence about climate change as it emerged and update its stance to reflect the science.
The latest official data released last week confirms that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise in Australia. National emissions increased by 3.1m tonnes in the year to March to reach 538.9m tonnes, a 0.6% jump on the previous year.
Emissions in Australia have increased every year since the Abbott government repealed a national carbon price after taking office in 2013.

Links

• Major Medical Groups Release Call to Action on Climate Change
• WHO calls for urgent action to protect health from climate change
• Climate change poses an unprecedented threat to the health of people in Australia and across the world (pdf)
• Australia's carbon emissions rise again, largely thanks to LNG industry
• Accepting anecdotes more readily than climate science is wilful ignorance
• EU to push Australia to clean up petrol standards as part of free trade deal