The Queensland Government has written a discussion paper on advancing climate change action and transitioning to a low carbon future. Submissions on that paper close this Friday 2nd September.

NQCC is writing a submission, because we know how important climate change is to our future and that it is the biggest challenge facing our global, national and local communities.

Climate change has very concerning risks for Queensland. These include increased intensity of tropical cyclones, varying rainfall and rising temperatures threatening the Wet Tropics region, and continued bleaching of our Reef from warmer and more acidic oceans. It’s not just weather patterns and ecosystems that will be affected. The human risks includes inundation of the Torres Strait Island communities, the range of dengue fever affected areas expanding and an increase in heat related deaths. (See infographic below for more info).

We encourage you to write your own submission too! Our friends at Environmental Defenders Office Queensland have made a template that you can use to express your ideas about climate change policy.

To help with your submission, download the submission template here. Don’t forget to update the highlighted sections with your own details and add in your own opinions.

Some suggestions that NQCC will be putting forward include:

• legislating climate action through a Climate Change Act or Charter (which will embed emissions reductions targets, climate change mitigation and adaption into all areas of government decision making).
• a moratorium on all new and expanding thermal coal mines.
• establishing a timeline for coal fired power station closures.
• halting all coal seam gas projects.
• tightening land clearing legislation to rein in emissions coming from the land use, land use change and forestry sector (Queensland currently takes up 90% of Australia’s emissions in that category, see page 37 of the discussion paper).
• reinstating coastal planning laws.

Once completed, email your submission to [email protected] before 11:59pm 2nd September. You can take it one step further and email a copy of your submission to your local State MP. Find your MP’s email address here.