For the love of action: people stepping up on climate change
A packed house for the NCE Summit. All event photographs courtesy of the NCE website.
Gatherings. We can dismiss them as mere ‘talk fests’, but the truth is it’s a privilege to be able to attend events live and in person. So many of our transformations and leaps forward in understanding and action come from real, human interaction and connection. So while we couldn’t possibly hope to attend every event that connects to the vision or work of Australia reMADE, when we do get to go to something that’s full of provocative leadership + practical insight, we feel an obligation to talk about it if possible.
This happened recently, when our Communications Lead Lily participated in Australia’s first (but likely not its last!) National Climate Emergency Summit. At this time when our nation is crying out for climate action, we want you to hear that it is happening – in the form of so many more people stepping up to fill the leadership vacuum our government’s created. In the words of Independent MP Zali Steggall, “Our Prime Minister is calling on us to be resilient. But resilience is not resignation.”
Here's the story.
For the love of action: people stepping up on climate change
Peter Garrett, Zali Steggall and Jean Hinchliffe discuss what leadership looks like in the climate emergency. Watch the recording here.
It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m inside the packed-to-capacity Melbourne Town Hall for Australia’s first ever National Climate Emergency Summit. The list of speakers is impressive. The crowds are friendly, despite hour-long queues to get inside that have stretched far around the block. I chuckle to myself imagining what passers-by assume we’re all here for: a new product launch maybe, a big industry expo, some really cool band?
The truth, of course, is rather different. We’re citizens, delegates of organisations and experts from different sectors gathered together to talk about climate, and the call for ‘emergency-level’ action in the wake of our country’s recent bushfire crisis. Among those present include people who lost everything, their towns and homes burned to the ground; as well as people who stood holding the fire hose for others – facing down ‘fire tornadoes’ and other monstrous conditions they’d never experienced before.
There’s a hopeful anticipation in the air. It feels like maybe instead of just another conference where we bang our fists on the table, that we are about to participate in something of lasting importance.
Of course, like all great live events, once it’s all over it’s hard to capture the energy and the impact for people who weren’t in the room. I remember thinking, ‘if this kind of thing was broadcast on national television, if every person in Australia could come to something like this, it would be a game-changer for our country.’ (It was live-streamed and you can check out many of the session recordings on the event website.)
So it’s in that spirit, rather than any desire to appear coolly detached or even a touch cynical, that I want to write about the NCE: what I took away, what made it hopeful and inspiring despite having two days of experts talking about existential threats to our civilisation. I will not be putting a microscope to every perceived flaw or potential shortcoming, because I believe that to do so minimises the good at a time and on an issue when so many people are crying out for hope and leadership.
My hope is that these reflections help bring you further inside the tent on important discussions happening on many fronts; that they inspire you, spark further thinking and serve you to better lead and act from where you are.
Leadership: not just them, us.
Greg Mullins, Former Commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW, talking about how Australia’s fire season is changing. Watch the full recording of his talk and more stories from the front lines here.
This brings me straight to the heart of what made this Summit a different experience for me, a person who’s never joined Extinction Rebellion or overly identified as an eco-warrior. (If anything, I identify most personally on this issue as a mum.)
While strongly acknowledging why Australia's federal government must do more, the NCE didn't stop there.
Instead of just calling for leadership from someone, somewhere else, this was a gathering of people who seemed to say, ‘stuff it. We’re here, let’s try.’ I don’t know if it was the recent bushfires or that unnerving sense that the entire world is just a tad unhinged at the moment… but the line that kept getting repeated was, ‘this is not a drill.’
Climate psychologists (yes, it’s a thing) are always saying that hope comes from action; and I can tell you the sense of energy, hope and positivity that came from seeing example after example of people owning their leadership and power to act cannot be overstated. I’ve been to many a climate conference. I’ve rarely seen standing ovations and tears from the crowd.
From local mayors and school students to federal politicians, industry leaders, emergency services responders, doctors, architects, military experts, philanthropists, small business owners, civil society leaders, journalists, farmers, clergy, psychologists, social researchers – the Summit was a microcosm of something bigger happening on this issue: in different ways, both elected and unelected leaders are emerging to fill the void left by our national government.
And that’s a very good thing, because the experts also drove home the speed and scale at which we must act, and it’s far greater than anything being widely acknowledged in the public debate. In a nutshell, we have ten years to decarbonise, reduce emissions by a factor of two. We can’t just kick the can down the road to targets in 2050. The markets are moving, but not fast enough. Business is still crying out for certainty. The only technology that could provide the ‘silver bullet’ we’re all desperate for is a time machine. These and other gems were delivered from the stage, by reputable people who’ve spent their careers analysing this problem, the science and the solutions. Sometimes it was all pretty hard to hear.
Margaret Klein Salamon - psychologist, author and founder of The Climate Mobilization discussing grief, fear and hope. Watch her full talk here, on the panel Getting the Messaging Right.
But there were also so many intelligently optimistic, creative panels and discussions on solutions in all their forms. In fact, one of the things I appreciated most was how the speakers joined the dots time and again, and the audience went right along with them. This wasn't a Summit about climate change as emissions-and-charts. It was about climate change and democracy, security, farming, jobs, health, trade, innovation, community, First Nations, economics, systems-change, women’s leadership, party politics, technology, human rights and history.
It was a space where we could wrestle with questions thoughtfully but constructively, including some discomfort around the notion of ‘emergency’ as a useful frame, versus something that too easily invites abuses of power. People acknowledged from the stage their own misgivings: that the emergency frame can allow for authoritarian over-steps. Call this an emergency, a human rights expert warned, and watch carefully over your rights to protest, to travel, to use your property as you see fit; the right to even reproduce.
But others pointed out how ‘emergency’ isn’t just a military/police/Big Brother frame – but an ambulance, fire and rescue frame. People come to our aid in times of emergency. The first duty of government is to protect people, after all, and as Tim Costello said, "declaring emergency forces governments to tell the truth."
One brave soul even admitted to questioning at first whether the whole climate emergency frame was ‘just another hashtag’ – a catchy display of virtue signalling that changes nothing in reality. I heard a few sympathetic murmurs.
Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore, talking about the actions cities are taking in Australia and worldwide to reduce emissions. Full recording here.
But speaker after speaker managed to illustrate that despite potential flaws or pitfalls, the emergency declaration is an effective trigger for action. It changes the context not only for governments but for business and the community to shape priorities, direct budgets and mobilise resources. Emergency signals a break from ‘business as usual’ or even ‘reform as usual’ to state that this challenge is our top priority. Importantly, it’s also something the public supports overwhelmingly. And the very first emergency declaration in the world started right here in Australia, in a local government council that's made impressive progress.
It was also a space where we could talk about mental health, grief, fear and loss; the more insidious sense of isolation and alienation that comes from diving into this issue, feeling incredibly depressed, and watching everyone else seem to go about their lives as though nothing’s wrong. I’ll always remember the words of Uncle Dave as he warmly welcomed us to country, but warned: “If you don’t care for the spirit of your Mother, she will reject you.” He also added that, “we can all heal our little bit of Country. Once we heal Country, we will heal ourselves as people and we will survive.”
In the final closing moments of the Summit, just as one could be tempted to think, ‘this has all been great, but now what?’ we were treated to something different again – the unveiling, by those who led the work, of three new initiatives hammered out during the NCE:
A Safe Climate Declaration calling for a new approach to climate action to advance Australia’s emergency transition. Another standing ovation.
“Climate Emergency Australia” – a new national network of governments and sector partners to provide the climate leadership Australia needs, led by local governments from 77 councils across every state and territory.
The next front in the school strikes for climate action: students getting their high schools around the country to declare a climate emergency. School students from every state and territory got together to strategise just how to do this, as well as to lay out the demands that will underpin these declarations.
Keep an eye out for more developments on all three of these fronts, but it was so heartening to see tangible outcomes of collective action to carry forward after these intense two days; in addition to all the work that’s already being done.
We’re far more united than we realise.
Oliver Yates and Lidia Thorpe in the entertaining and intriguing ‘This is Not a Drill’ scenario: ‘a not-so-hypothetical plunge into thinking the impossible and making it happen.’ Watch here.
One of the bits of wisdom spoken from the stage, by the always-insightful Rebecca Huntley, is that the way the media covers climate change amplifies shouting and a sense of division, “so that people who don’t feel confident to shout don’t say anything.” Or as Carmen Lawerence put it, “noisy bastards actually represent the minority, but they create a spiral of silence.”
Perhaps more than anything else, this Summit drove home for me that we can stop giving the professional shouters and fear-mongers such power to distract and silence us.
At the dawn of a new decade, it really is time to stop believing the lies: that those of us who want action are in the minority (we’re not); that division on this issue is too big and intractable (it’s neither); that the solutions are too hard (doctors, firefighters and governments don’t just roll over and accept other threats to our health and safety); or that we have to wait for perfect leaders to step up in order to be effective (Churchill certainly wasn’t).
We don't have to be technical experts to listen well and share what's in our hearts. We don't have to be perfect, fearless leaders to lead from where we are.
No doubt this gathering had its own flaws, too. But there’s an old saying I first learned from a couple of young women climate leaders, which I think we can all embrace: ‘People who say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those doing it.’
Here's to 2020.
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Video recordings from the main stage sessions are available to watch on YouTube, or check out the full list of podcast audio recordings.
LILIAN SPENCER
Lilian Spencer is the Communications Lead for Australia reMADE. She believes that the secret to change is to ‘focus your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.’
