2020 Summit should put one billion people Centre Stage

Project SafeCom Inc.
P.O. Box 364
Narrogin
Western Australia 6312
Phone: 0417 090 130
Web: https://www.safecom.org.au/

2020 Summit should put one billion people Centre Stage

Media Release
Monday April 18, 2008 11:15am WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"This weekend's 2020 Summit stands in the context of the new admission by Nicholas Stern, that he has seriously underestimated the rapid progress of climate change, and the 2020 Summit takes place in the context of the recent decision by the United Nations Human Rights Council that the hurt and potential displacement by people affected by climate change and disasters, should be embraced as primarily a human rights issue," WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom said today.

Mr Rudd's Canberra gathering should acknowledge that Australia radically needs to move away from its nasty preoccupation with 'border security' when it comes to climate refugees, "because the 2007 Christian Aid Service Report puts the potential number of world citizens affected, at one billion people," spokesman Jack H Smit said.

"Australia needs to move towards a warm embrace of those who are affected, and we are nearly ready for this: polls have shown that most Australians are seriously concerned about climate change and that they want to do more, and that they want the government to do more on this issue."

Elephant in the Room

"In terms of 'doing more' Labor and Mr Rudd need to remove The Elephant in The Room and start talking, together with former Australian Of The Year Tim Flannery - who will be attending the Summit - about the phasing out of both the use of Coal for energy provision and about the exportation of coal to countries like China."

"Further, Mr Rudd need to remove the Fairy Godmother who feeds the Elephant: the push by the coal industry to keep looking at carbon sequestration, an unproved methodology, about which we know, that Australia will never find enough underground spaces to store the carbon it produces."

"The first statement Mr Flannery made as the 2007 Australian Of The Year was to say that coal and the production, use and exportation of coal has lost its social licence in the world," and Labor, the Unions and the Rudd government should stop feeding the coal industry, stop subsidising fossil fuel industries."

Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
[phone number posted]

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