Page 209 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

17 AN INTERVIEW WITH BLAIR PALESE … 205

BP: The Adani mine is just one more example that Australia’s current
Turnbull government is more interested in governing for vested interests
than for Australians. Pandering to fossil fuel interests for political gain, it
has pushed the project and attacked any opposition to this mine—from
traditional owners, farmers and environmentalists. However, I am positive
that we can kill this project before it even begins. Currently, one of the
largest coalitions of Australians ever assembled against a coal mine is
mobilising to stop Adani from going ahead. We know that this mine is bad
business—it would blow any chance for a safe climate future, undermining
Australia’s Paris pledge to keep warming below 2°, not to mention coming
at a time that coal is in structural decline. By highlighting this fact and
targeting the banks and other possible investors—getting them to rule out
funding the project—we can ensure that despite government support that
the project doesn’t get the finance it desperately needs to go ahead.

BB: How do you change the quite common view that climate change is
a luxury concern for people who are very privileged? How do you
build a climate justice movement that can bring together daily eco-
nomic concerns as well as concerns about justice, jobs, services, health
and the need for climate action?

BP: There is no doubt that those who’ve done the least to cause the
problem are feeling the worst impacts of climate change right now and will
do in the future. You only have to look at sea level rise and extreme
weather events in the Pacific islands and countries like Bangladesh and the
Philippines or drought in Africa to know that climate justice is an essential
part of the solutions we need. The developed world must play its part in
helping the nations most vulnerable to the impacts as well as helping
developing countries leapfrog fossil fuels straight to clean energy. Again,
climate change offers us a unique opportunity to address the issue as a
unified word. At 350.org, we’ve tried not to tell people in countries around
the world how to campaign on climate change, but to ask them what they
think works for them and how we can join them in the effort.
BB: Mark Dowse argued in his 1995 book, Losing Ground, that the
green movement needs to examine and criticize itself, or “it will
become merely a clever marketing hook and even less relevant to the
problems we face in the 21st century”. How much has the environ-
mental movement evolved since then?