Australia would have a Climate Response Service to put thousands of people on the ground and help prepare for fires, floods, and cyclones; and assist with the extensive cleanup after they strike, under a Greens plan to protect communities from disasters supercharged by coal and gas. The “climate army\u201d would be funded by making big coal and gas corporations pay more tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP, Deputy Leader and Greens Climate Adaptation & Resilience spokesperson Mehreen Faruqi, and Richmond candidate Mandy Nolan launched the plan today in the Northern Rivers, a region that was still recovering from the 2022 floods even as this year\u2019s Cyclone Alfred struck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the climate crisis caused by coal and gas makes extreme weather conditions more frequent and destructive, thousands of volunteers such as the mud army after the Brisbane floods have found themselves taking on an increased burden of preparation and cleanup works – but this \u201cclimate army\u201d currently operates without national support or co-ordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proposal to commit $1bn a year over three years would create a service to be managed by the National Emergency Management Agency, working with local communities to provide skilled, scalable support in a crisis. Specifics would be devised through the NEMA\u2019s consultation with communities, the ADF, and local service providers and volunteer groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Evidence suggests that the Climate Response Service should assist in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would raise the threshold before action is required of the ADF, freeing up military resources to respond to the biggest incidents and to focus on their primary role of national defence. Evidence provided to the recent Select Committee on Australia’s Disaster Resilience found that the ADF is being increasingly stretched by the increasing frequency of callouts to global warming charged natural disasters, and lacks the resources to handle incidents like bushfires. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recent Defence Strategic Review has said that Defence is increasingly required to respond to climate change and that the ADF should be used as a last resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Experts predict the upcoming parliament will be a shared power parliament, and with the Greens pushing to expand in seats like Richmond, Wills and Macnamara, the party is in a strong position to keep the Liberals out and push Labor to act. The Greens seats in Queensland, and target seat of Richmond, have been among those most impacted by the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly 1 in 2 coal and gas corporations pays no tax, and the Greens say that ending fossil fuel subsidies would fund this service and more. Yesterday\u2019s revelatory report from The Australia Institute showed that Labor paid $15b in fossil fuel subsidies in FY24\/25, giving $28,381 a minute to some of Australia\u2019s most profitable companies to make the climate crisis worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCommunities across the Northern Rivers and Queensland are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis caused by coal and gas, and brave volunteers are spending countless hours protecting people and cleaning up afterwards, but too often the government is underprepared and can\u2019t stay to help the community put the pieces back together\u201d Mr Bandt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCoal and gas are fuelling these fires and floods, but instead of protecting the community and properly funding the cleanup, Labor and Liberal are making the problem worse by approving over 30 new coal and gas projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA national Climate Response Service would help co-ordinate the thousands of volunteers who already do this lifesaving work across the country, and we\u2019ll make the coal and gas corporations pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens & Climate Adaptation & Resilience spokesperson:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need to rapidly move away from coal and gas, but the climate crisis is already here – and it is devastating communities across the country,\u201d Senator Faruqi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen disaster strikes, it\u2019s not the government that shows up\u2014it\u2019s volunteers. Thousands of everyday people are on the frontline, supporting communities, battling fires or floods, and cleaning up the destruction caused by coal and gas companies. We need to take action to ensure that communities are adequately supported and resourced to prepare for and respond to climate-driven disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Greens are the only party fighting for real solutions\u2014stronger disaster response, resilient communities, and an end to the reckless expansion of coal and gas. It is time for leadership that puts people before polluters.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandy Nolan, Greens candidate for Richmond:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur community is bloody tough and pulls together like no other – but as things get worse, we need the government to step up,\u201d Ms Nolan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPoliticians in Canberra might see floods and fires as a few days of headlines, but for us, it\u2019s months or years of cleanup and rebuilding – with no guarantee that it won\u2019t just happen again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThousands of volunteers do incredible work when disaster strikes – from saving lives via helicopters, to shoveling out mud from homes, often without specialised training, much-needed insurance, or mental health support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need a climate reserve with trained people to pick up tools when there\u2019s more jobs to do, the machines and equipment to take on specialised work, and the resources to bring everything together – even when power and phone lines go down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a big job, but the first job of any government should be to protect people. Labor should be building up a Climate Response Service to help deal with climate change, not making it worse by opening new coal and gas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia would have a Climate Response Service to put thousands of people on the ground and help prepare for fires, floods, and cyclones; and assist with the extensive cleanup after they strike, under a Greens plan to protect communities from disasters supercharged by coal and gas. The “climate army\u201d would be funded by making big … Continue reading “Greens propose new \u2018Climate Response Service\u2019 to aid flood and fire response”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31994,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31993\/revisions\/31994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}