Climate Justice Alliance comment – an (un)natural disaster

THE Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) has called for urgent action as the Northern Rivers region recovers from the impact of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

The organisation believes coal and gas pollution fuelled the unnatural climate disaster. It is advocating for a polluter-pays framework that holds coal and gas corporations accountable for climate damage, no new approvals for coal and gas projects, and increased investment in renewable energy and climate resilience CJA spokesperson and Northern Rivers resident Chels Hood Withey said the event was not a natural disaster.

“Our communities are still recovering from the devastating 2022 floods, and now we’re facing a tropical cyclone that shouldn’t be this far south,” she said.

“Now that ocean waters are heating up, people are at much greater risk.

“I’m not feeling great about the future of more frequent and extreme unnatural disasters, although it does motivate me further to ensure climate justice by saving our native forests and ending coal and gas,” she said.

The alliance claims coal and gas pollution has caused ocean temperatures in the region to rise 1.5 degrees above average, measuring 26.6°C in Byron Bay and 26.9°C in Brisbane.

Social worker and Brunswick Heads resident Valerie said people in the region understood the issue.

“The irony is not lost on this community that a warm ocean of 1.5 degrees above average has supercharged this climate event,” she said.

“Yet our government has not yet committed to climate action to limit heating even to this,” she said.

“It is playing dice with our lives and our region as a whole, as we can clearly see right now.”

Northern Rivers community leader MJ Johnston said the region had been left behind.

“Here we are again facing another imminent disaster while still recovering from the last,” she said.

“As these unnatural climate disasters become more frequent and extreme, we need a real plan from both major parties to fund our recovery.”

Climate and youth activist and organiser 21-year-old Mossy Cluney is dismayed by successive government policies.

“In my two decades here, I’ve seen multiple once-in-a-lifetime disasters, becoming more and more destructive and more common, while our government continues to play dumb, refusing to act,” she said.

“Instead, we see their focus on criminalising our communities for the ways we cope.

“How can young people possibly care enough to find a fulfilling life when the government continues to show their disinterest in providing us the means to obtain a future worth fighting for?” she said.