With the release of its new series Fight for Planet A, the ABC is welcoming all Australians into an important conversation about the state of our planet and our role in protecting it.
As COVID-19 has placed many parts of our lives on hold, there has never been a more opportune moment in time to research, reflect, and talk with one another about the practical ways we can lead the charge towards a greener future. In ABC’s new series Fight for Planet A, Australian comedian Craig Reucassel boils climate solutions down to how we can collectively reduce our carbon footprint in our daily lives, call on corporations to do their part with us, and welcome new voices to this crucial conversation on climate change.
With 2019 being recorded as Australia’s hottest and driest year by the Bureau of Meteorology, climate change is the biggest challenge we face as a humanity and our society’s reliance on fossil fuels isn’t helping. But together we have the chance to safeguard our communities and wildlife by calling on big businesses to switch to 100% renewable energy. While we all play our part in making small sustainable changes in our daily lives, we must also direct our voices towards corporations like Optus, Vodafone, Woolworths and Coles who all together use an astounding 70% of Australia’s electricity – which is still mostly powered by polluting coal.
Where do you fit into this conversation?
In Fight for Planet A, Craig Reucassel will challenge all Australians, new and old to this climate conversation, to show that together through actions big and small, we can take on the biggest issue of our time. The series will track five Australian households as they showcase the potential impact of small lifestyle changes in energy, transport, and food on the bigger climate crisis.
Fight for Planet A encourages Australians to think of themselves as powerful to create big changes. It transforms the solutions to climate change into easy steps that any individual, school, and business can follow, such as reducing household energy emissions and ensuring communities work together to scale up their impact.
If there’s anything to take away from the series, it’s that we are all impacted by the climate emergency in one way or another, but we can all do something about it.
How can individuals scale up their impact?
All that said, Fight for Planet A is just the starting point for a bigger national conversation on the climate crisis. While turning off the light, investing in solar panels, and taking public transport will put us leaps and bounds ahead of where we are now, we must also maintain our momentum by calling on the biggest polluters to do their bit too.
In fact, if just three of Australia’s largest companies—Woolworths, Coles, and Telstra—were powered by 100% renewable energy, they would cut almost 17 million tonnes of carbon emissions alone. New research also suggests that investing in renewable energy has the potential to create 44,000 new jobs by 2025. The environmental and economic benefits of renewables are fertile ground for pushing our society away from dirty fossil fuels especially in our COVID-19 recovery, starting with big businesses.
Fight for Planet A sets the scene for a much-needed discussion about climate change. In every individual is the capacity to make a real impact on our futures if we act right now when we need hope as we have never needed it before. We need to embrace all Australians in this conversation on climate change, especially when it comes to ensuring big polluting businesses hear our voices. The challenges facing our world are complex and daunting, but they have also been a lesson in the power we can mobilise in each other to rise to the occasion.
The push for a green COVID-19 recovery is only just starting with 69% of Australians wanting corporations to switch to 100% renewables now. Already, over 230 companies in Australia and overseas have made commitments to 100% renewable energy. Household names like Telstra, Carlton and United, Google, L’Oreal, and Australia’s big four banks have all committed to making the switch, demonstrating the true power of uniting our individual voices.
In our COVID-19 recovery, our goal should not be to simply survive the climate crisis but to use renewables to thrive for generations to come. As individuals, we have to decide where we want to be in five, ten, fifty years from today, and we can start by demanding that the biggest polluters switch to 100% renewable energy now.
In our REenergise campaign, we’re amplifying the concerns of so many Australians about the big polluters who need to step up to the plate for our communities and wildlife. As a 100% independent organisation, we don’t accept aid from corporations or governments. Instead, we rely on our supporters to power our campaign by accelerating our reach to polluting companies, funding training for volunteers, and kickstarting digital campaigns. Ultimately, REenergise—and Greenpeace as a whole—makes your individual voice heard by the biggest companies in Australia and puts the pressure on them to lead the charge for a greener, fairer future.
Add your voice to demand Australia’s biggest polluters switch to 100% renewable energy!
