On Thursday Australian Community Media, the publisher of this newspaper, launched the first instalment of Our Climate Future, an important new series on climate change.
It is being published across Australia's largest regional newspaper network.
The series is being written by some of ACM's most talented young journalists, almost all of whom are in their 20s, and who have experienced the impact of climate change first hand. Tess Kelly, 22, of The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth, wrote her piece after a trip to Gunnedah to cover catastrophic flooding.
"Living in regional areas is where I want to be .... But I am worried about the liveability of these places if we don't start taking climate change seriously," she wrote.
Rosie Bensley of The Illawarra Mercury, also 22, spoke for a large majority of under-35s when she wrote: "I'm part of a generation inheriting a world that's fracturing as it warms. Climate change is threatening my generation's future".
According to The Australia Institute's State of the Nation report released in 2021: "Younger respondents [to its survey] are more concerned about climate change and more supportive of actions to reduce emissions". While 73 per cent of Australians aged between 18 and 24, and 77 per cent of those aged between 25 and 34, believe Australia should be a world leader in finding solutions to climate change, only 58 per cent aged over 65 share that view.
Everybody, regardless of age, should join the fight to reduce emissions and to mitigate the impact of climate change. We all have a responsibility to the generations that will follow us. It is unfortunate, in view of this, the Prime Minister cannot find the time to attend COP 27 in Egypt, especially given he wants Australia to host COP 29 in 2024. It would also be an opportunity to renew his acquaintance with President Biden, President Macron, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and to meet the new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the new Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni.
Mr Albanese, who says he "can't be everywhere at once", is sending Chris Bowen instead. When Prime Minister Sunak initially said he wouldn't be going he was called out by members of his own party for "an absolute failure of leadership" on "the biggest crisis facing our planet". The same criticism can be levelled at Mr Albanese. He has a clear responsibility to go.
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