Climate

Divestment Day Oct 18th – remove your finances from the fossil fuel industry

robyn October 11, 2014

Since 2008, ANZ, CommBank, NAB and Westpac have funded almost $19 billion worth of dirty fossil fuel projects in Australia.

HELP MAKE SURE IT DOESN’T HAPPEN AGAIN!

Join us (Market Forces and 350.org Australia) on Divestment Day, (17 and) 18 October, as we tell the big banks that if “you choose fossil fuels, we’re choosing another bank!”

www.marketforces.org.au/divestmentday

TELL THE BIG BANKS: NO MORE FOSSIL FUELS!

Australia is on the verge of a massive expansion of its fossil fuel industry.

Coal and gas projects are proposed that threaten precious natural icons like the Great Barrier Reef, and also our climate, health, water and land. The big four banks will play will play a crucial role in financing these projects.

On (17 and) 18 October 2014, thousands of Australians will turn out to publicly close their accounts with the big four banks in protest over their funding of the fossil fuel industry.

Register now:

www.marketforces.org.au/divestmentday

CAPITAL CITY LOCATIONS:

Adelaide, SA

Saturday 18 October 2014 at 11am

The ‘Mall’s Balls’ in Rundle Mall

Melbourne, VIC

Saturday 18 October 2014 at 11am

Federation Square – St Paul’s Court, next to the Melbourne Visitor Centre

Sydney, NSW

Saturday 18 October 2014 at 11am

Sydney Square – Between Sydney Town Hall and St Andrews Cathedral

Brisbane, QLD

Saturday 18 October 2014 at 11am

Reddacliff Place, public seating near corner of North Quay and Queen Street

Perth, WA

Saturday 18 October 2014 at 11am

Perth Cultural Centre – in front of LED screen

Canberra, ACT

Saturday 18 October 2014 at 11am

Garema Place, “The Chess Board”

Hobart, TAS

Friday 17 October 2014 at 12.30pm

Corner of Elizabeth and Liverpool Streets, Outside the NAB building

For regional locations, or more information, visit:

www.marketforces.org.au/divestmentday/locations

Invite your friends to join!

Clean Futures, Climate, Divestment, FoE, Mining, Renewables, Sustainability

Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement Community Meeting

robyn April 11, 2014

Please pass onto your networks.

Community discussion with Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson re TPP and ISDS

When: Tuesday 15 April, 6pm to 7pm. Drinks and nibbles from 5.30pm.

Where: Office of Greens Senator Penny Wright, Level 3, 27 Leigh Street, Adelaide

Leaked chapters from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations and the recent Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement, provide clear and chilling examples of how new modern trade agreements can have influence over significant areas of public interest and importance.

The Abbott Government supports ‘Trojan Horse’ provisions commonly called Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses in current trade negotiations. Even former Prime Minister John Howard did not support ISDS in the last US Free Trade Agreement. ISDS provisions open a can of worms, and allows foreign investors to sue governments if their investments are ‘harmed’ by a national, state or local policy or law. We know from ISDS clauses in other so-called FTAs this mechanism could;

• Put at risk affordable medicines and Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme

• Attack moves to tighten rules on foreign investment in agricultural land and water

• Prevent moratoriums on genetically modified organisms and coal seam gas extraction

• Attack environment laws and legislation designed to address climate change; and

• Remove county or region of origin food labelling.

Please RSVP to Emma.Gorman@aph.gov.au by 5pm Monday 14 April if you would like to take part in this important discussion.

The Fair Food Adelaide Collective is continuing the campaign against the TPP, if you would like to be involved please contact us at adelaide.office@foe.org.au

Clean Futures, Climate, Environmental Law, FoE

*events*, Adelaide, climate change, community, education, food_sovereignty

Potential Fossil Fuel Divestment training in Adelaide

Mike Pulsford, from 350.org,au, writes

I’ve been talking to Charlie Wood, 350.org’s national campaign director, about a possible date for a fossil fuel divestment training session in Adelaide. This session covers all the concepts, terms, strategies and arguments you need to run a divestment campaign with confidence, as well as an overview of the more detailed resources we’ve got for campaigners – primers, reports, templates and so on. It’s designed so that once you’ve done it, you can run the training yourself for others, and we’ll make all slides and materials available for this too.

She’s suggesting Sunday September 1. How many of you would be interested and able to make this date? We’d need at least 15 participants (though more is fine too – feel free to pass this email on to anyone who you think might be interested). Otherwise we can wait until later in the year.

The training itself goes for 3 hours; in Melbourne we had a share lunch and a brainstorming/campaign planning session afterwards, which made it a 5 hour event, but that’s optional (while very nice).

Let me know your thoughts, in any case!

—

Here in Melbourne we’ve made progress with the City of Melbourne, and one of the councillors has agreed to champion divestment to the rest of council, which is exciting. It looks from our initial research like they have no money invested in fossil fuels, so pledging to remain free of such investments should be pretty easy for them! We framed it as an invitation for them to lead on this nationally, which they seem to like the sound of. We’re also talking to Yarra Climate Action Now about collaborating on a campaign aimed at the City of Yarra.

The University of Melbourne campaign, run by the Environment Collective, is speeding ahead, with postering and actions and FOI requests and research and all the rest of it.… Read more >>

Climate, Divestment

A word to the banks…

David June 4, 2013

So that’s the issue. Is it true that ANZ Bank continues to invest in fossil fuel exploration and extraction? Is it true that ANZ Bank and its investors continue to make profits from destroying the planet’s ecosystem?

Isn’t that criminal

Brian Loffler, writing an open letter to the CEO of the ANZ bank on Divestment From Fossil Fuels

on the New Internationalist blog.

“Do the Math” meeting streamed to Adelaide

FoE Adelaide simulcast the Canberra “Do the Math”
meeting with Bill McKibben from 7pm on June 5th
at the BH209 Lecture Theatre,
The Barbara Hanrahan building,
City West Campus,
University of SA,

Thanks to 350.org.au for making the feed available
and the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences,
Division of IT, Engineering and the Environment at UniSA for providing the venue.

We had an audience of 39 for the talk, followed by a short panel with activists from various groups working on Climate Change.

BZE had their scale model of the Solar Thermal plant for Pt Augusta on display, and we handed out leaflets from FoE, 350.org et alia.

Climate, Divestment