Dan Abikhair

Save the Planet Party Polices

Save the Planet has outlined a number of polices it believes are needed to give us the best chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change and saving this planet.

Our polices fall into the following areas:

 

• Eliminating net emissions of greenhouse gases

• Returning to a safe climate (pre-industrial temperature and ocean heat and acidity)

• Preparing for climate change (that is not avoided)

• Creating a sustainable future

 

 

Core Policies

Save the Planet has four core policies which we believe are needed to give us the best chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change and saving this planet.

 

 

1. Drive the creation of Emergency Plans for Safe Climate Restoration

2. Implement an emergency speed transition (10 years or less) to a safe climate economy.

3. Transition our economy away from dependence on constant material and population growth, human exploitation and high levels of debt, while continuing knowledge growth, and service and technological improvements.

4. Bring climate criminals to justice.

These polices are designed to drive our emissions to net negative and begin the process of cooling the planet. They are to be rolled out at emergency speed over ten years. This would require significant restructuring of a variety of industries, the closure of some and the creation of others. Communities and workers would be supported to manage this transition and opportunities will be created for firms to repurpose as part of structural adjustment planning.
 

 

EMERGENCY ACTION TO RESTORE A SAFE CLIMATE

Our political and community leaders immediately develop implementation plans for their areas of responsibility to build a safe climate economy at emergency speed in this critical decade.
 

 

WHAT WOULD we do to Reduce emissions

We have already put too much greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, producing any more simply adds to the twin problems of global warming and ocean acidification. If we are to save our planet and our oceans we must reduce our current emission to zero. We would seek to do this at emergency speed over ten years.

 

Energy

• 100% renewable energy system based on solar concentrating thermal, wind, solar PV and some biomass back up (See Beyond Zero Emission's Stationary Energy Plan for costed details on how to do this.)

• No new investments in fossil fuel exploration, production and use

• Rapid phase out of fossil fuel production and use

 

• Massive energy efficiency roll out across all sectors of the economy

• New continually improving minimum standards for electrical appliances

 

• New minimum standards for buildings

• Solar access rights

• New standard for buildings that better reflect the performance of a variety of design styles and material use - such as thermal mass.

 

 

Transport

• Massive roll out and upgrade of walking and cycling infrastructure and electrified rail (light, heavy, super fast, and freight)

• Expanded rail in rural areas including light rail for rural towns

• Support for electric cars

• Limited bio fuels produced largely as a by-product from biochar production

• Switch existing electrified rail systems to renewable energy immediately

• No further expansion of the road system until the transition to a zero emissions, high resource efficiency economy has been completed.

 

Forestry

• End industrial scale native forest logging

• Preserve remaining native vegetation

• Allow previously logged areas on state-owned land to recover as carbon sinks

• Increase minimum area of native vegetation for each bioregion to 20%

• Move fiber production to hemp and farm forestry, restorative forestry, and analogue forestry on already cleared or damaged lands.

 

Agriculture

• Support organic and low input agriculture

• End broad-scale land clearing, compensate land owners

• Recapture nutrients from the urban waste stream

 

• Support urban agriculture and farmers markets

• Ban suspect chemicals or chemicals already banned in other countries *

• Ensure chemical free water catchments *Ensure genetic rights of heirloom agricultural species remained owned by the people and culture they come from.*

• Labelling of all food containing any genetically modified organisms.*

• Ensure research into effects of genetically modified food is carried out independently of the corporations creating the food.*

• GE seed and plant sellers to be responsible for the cost of any genetic pollution and removal of any GE modified organisms that escape into the environment or adjacent properties*

* General agricultural policies
 

 

 

Returning to a safe climate

We have already gone beyond what is a safe level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and we must now reduce these levels in order to end the heating of the planet and start a global cooling to restore the preindustrial temperatures.  Measures to achieve this include:

 

• Reducing methane production by encouraging a major reduction in consumption of products from sheep and cattle

 

• Sequestering atmospheric CO2 in soil using long rest short rotation grazing systems and pasture cropping systems, reforestation of cleared land, and using biochar as a agricultural soil improver.

• Using safe and reversible geo-engineering options such as painting roofs white to speed cooling

 

 

Preparing for Climate change

We are already seeing the affects of climate change including extreme weather events, killer heat waves, fires, floods and storms. Rebuilding community and improving community capabilities to respond to increasing climate impacts is a vital part of the response to climate change.

 

• Re-build community connections    

• Support localised food production - including save suburban open space such as back yards to ensure people have access to food growing spaces. 

• Boost planning and preparation for extreme weather safety strategies for floods, storms, fires and heat waves. 

• Ensure vulnerable members of the community are looked after. 

• Strengthen the civil emergency system

• Strengthen building codes

• Strengthen existing infrastructure

• Retreat from vulnerable coastal and flood prone areas

• Accept regional climate refugees and commence integration and migration of the populations from the drowning Pacific islands.

 

 

MANAGING GROWTH

An economic system dependent on constant material growth is impossible to sustain within a finite system and has led to the ecological and social crises we are now facing.

 

• Transition our economy away from one dependent on constant material and population growth, human exploitation and high levels of interest bearing debt, while continuing knowledge growth and service and technological improvements

 

• Allow our population to decline naturally to a stable sustainable level.

• Limit expansion of cities into greenfield sites by creating urban boundaries

(This approach to physical growth is explored in the paper "100% decoupling" below.)