Climate focus to candidate forum

A PUBLIC State election candidate forum with a focus on the climate will be held at Ballarat Tech School this Sunday, 13 November.

All local candidates running for the seats of Eureka, Wendouree, and Ripon have been invited to take part by members of organising group Ballarat Renewable Energy and Zero Emissions.

Attending candidates will be asked to outline their policies for addressing climate change before they take questions from the audience.

“We know that the window for climate action is now perilously small,” said BREAZE president Mary Debrett.

“We know that climate change is here and happening with devastating flooding in many local communities across the region.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change advised recently that we need to ensure greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2025, with a rapid transition to 100 per cent renewable energy away from fossil fuels if we are to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.

“This was agreed at the Paris CoP in 2015. We are currently heading for over two degrees.

“To those who say Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are only a minor proportion of global emissions and that what we do here will make little difference, the common sense rationale of ‘think global, act local’ indicates we cannot expect others to do what we are not prepared to do ourselves.”

The forum will run from 2pm to 4pm at 136 Albert Street, Ballarat. Register at bit.ly/3zOS8ZZ as seating is limited.