Australia's government is a coalition of conservative parties, the larger partner paradoxically calling itself, the Liberal Party. One of its earliest actions, after gaining power, was the abolition of the government funded, Climate Commission. Response was what became Australia's biggest crowd-funding campaign, to reform as the Climate Council. Their purpose essentially unchanged:
"We exist to provide independent, authoritative climate change information to the Australian public. Why? Because our response to climate change should be based on the best science available." – Climate Council
Not content with attempting to destroy the Climate Council, Australia's conservative government has recently announced plans to abolish over 100 climate science research positions from Australia's foremost scientific research organisation, the CSIRO.1 Part of the response is an email to supporters from Professor Will Steffen, a member of the Climate Council, which is reproduced below in its entirety.
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I recently emailed you to share my dismay at the news that the CSIRO plan to cut over 100 jobs from the agency’s climate science staff. The messages of support and solidarity we received at the Council from our community were truly heartening - thank you!
The fact remains that cutting climate science now, as the demand escalates for both reducing our emissions and protecting our communities from worsening impacts, just doesn’t make sense. It’s like flying into a violent storm and ripping out the radar, navigation and communication instruments.
To get the facts out about how significant and damaging these cuts will be for Australia and the world, we've put together a new report, Flying Blind: Navigating Climate Change without the CSIRO. And already this morning, it’s received widespread media coverage.
The report reveals some worrying findings:
● The cuts to CSIRO’s climate science capacity will damage Australia’s ability to understand, respond to and plan for a changing climate.
● If the cuts proceed, Australia will have already reneged on a key promise in the Paris climate agreement.
● The cuts will leave a gaping hole in international science community’s ability to understand climate change in the Southern Hemisphere.
This may be one of our most important reports yet - and we’ve put together a short video to help the report reach as many people as possible. Will you please share it widely with your friends and networks? And if possible, go the extra step of asking them to do the same? Australia’s climate scientists need our support.
Outrage over these proposed cuts is shared world-wide - almost 3000 scientists from 60 countries have signed an open letter to highlight how these cuts will significantly limit CSIRO’s capacity and diminish the global climate change research effort. This pressure from the international community, along with your efforts to stop this story slipping off the front pages CAN make a difference.
It is so important that the whole community are aware of how these cuts will impact our ability to understand, plan for and respond to climate change - so please, help us get this report out there. Thank you.
In solidarity,
Professor Will Steffen
Climate Councillor
P.S. These cuts to climate science are deeply troubling, it makes our work, getting the facts out to the public even more vital. Please consider chipping in a few dollars a week so we can keep going.
You can also keep up with Climate Council on Twitter or Facebook.
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1 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – http://www.csiro.au/en/About/ climate change global warming CO2 carbon dioxide greenhouse effect greenhouse gas /
