Friends Of The Earth (Australia)

Friends of the Earth Australia is actively working to build resilient communities around the country to resist the spread of the nuclear, coal, and gas industry, to protect forests our beautiful carbon sinks and to adapt and prepare for the already changing climate. Our climate justice campaigns have helped to forge the agenda on the human rights dimensions of climate change. We have supported the rights of those at risk of climateinduced displacement as well as exposing the social impacts of carbon offset schemes in countries of the global South. In July 2022, Tipping Point, in partnership with the grassroots, launched Move Beyond Coal turning attention to stopping the flow of money to all Australian coal and phasing out coal exports by 2030, Australia s biggest contribution to the climate crisis. Market Forces have continued to deliver campaigns that ratchet up pressure on financial and corporate sectors to act on climate change. The FoE Australia Nuclear Free campaign is primarily concerned with the environmental impacts across the nuclear fuel cycle. This includes work on the environmental impacts of uranium mining, nuclear power and proposed nuclear waste facilities. Our two main areas of work over the past year have been highlighting the environmental impacts of nuclear power and the environmental impacts of a proposed nuclear waste facility at Kimba in SA. This financial year saw a ‘formal’ launch of Sapna South Asian Climate Solidarity through its main projects. The first was a 3 part workshop series for Move Beyond Coal campaigners/activists to learn about climate and energy justice from the perspective of South Asia/the global South. These were developed and run by Sapna Cofounder and Project Director Dr. Ruchira Talukdar. The workshops were titled ‘Beyond the Singular Narratives of Stop Coal and Start Renewables’ and focussed on a diversity of land, energy and humanrights based concerns of communities that need to be addressed in a transition away from fossilfuels, from a South Asian perspective, and emphasised what Australia can learn from them. Over 2022/2023 Healthy Futures succeeded in raising public awareness of the health impacts of coal by advocating for earlier coal power station closures at AGL’s 2022 AGM. In 2022, FoE Melbourne s Act on Climate collective secured a major stepup in climate ambition at the state government level: ahead of the Victorian state election, the Andrews government committed to setting a 2035 Emissions Reduction Target (ERT) of 7580%, alongside a target of 95% renewables by 2035. We assisted many environmental and social justice groups, and several unions, to contribute to the government s consultation on the 2035 ERT. A major win this year was the Victorian Government s announcement that it will bring the end of native forest logging in the east of the state forward by 6 years. All native forest logging will cease on public lands in the east from January 1, 2024.