NEVILLE, we need to talk. Sam R – GetUp!

We need to talk about something serious.

This is slightly longer than our usual emails, but bear with me — you’ll be glad you did.

Last week, $56 billion was wiped off our share market in a single day. Directly or indirectly, almost everyone in Australia was affected.

It happened because as a nation we have chronically overinvested in coal and gas, and we have no plan to fix the mess.

For decades, huge commodity companies have sunk trillions of dollars into fossil fuel projects they expected to last for years. At the same time, the Australian Government has been forking out over $11 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel sector each year.¹

But while they’ve been busy spending, the world has been busy changing.

China is plagued with chronic air pollution and is sprinting away from coal power. India wants to end all coal imports, fast.² For the first time, the world is adding more clean renewable power than fossil fuel power each year.³ And today, the UK announced it could move to close all coal-fired power stations by 2023.⁴

Simply put, we have massively overcommitted to fossil fuels and commodities and it’s left our economy in a huge hole.

We are stuck, chained to outdated technology that’s making us sick, holding back our economy and is leaving us behind as the rest of the world harnesses the clean energy revolution.

Australia desperately needs to transition our economy, but our Government doesn’t have a plan. So we’re going to make one for them.

We need to raise money enough to work with a select team of economists, researchers, movement partners and policy experts to create a bold, ambitious white paper for transitioning our economy. The goal? Develop a clear pathway to power our economy by at least 50% renewables by 2030, and we need some concrete plans to take to political parties and candidates ahead of the election.

But for a plan that wants to change the country, we’ll need to work with the best minds there are. Can you chip in to fund our Homegrown Power Plan?

This is a slightly unusual tactic for GetUp. But times like these call for serious measures. Our Government looks set to double-down on fossil fuels, preparing to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to Adani for its unprofitable, Reef-damaging coal mine.⁵

The crazy thing is though they know how popular renewable energy is with the Australian public. What they don’t know is how to make the large-scale, revolutionary change we desperately need.

That’s where we can come in. If we can raise enough, we can develop a clear pathway to power our economy by at least 50% renewables by 2030, and we need some concrete plans to take to political parties and candidates ahead of the election.

NEVILLE, can you help fun a Homegrown Power Plan to show our political leaders how to create the clean energy transition our economy desperately needs?

It’s a big project, but it’s one that we’re confident we can get right. Together, we can show in real, tangible form exactly how we can shed our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels and transition our economy to be fuelled by clean, renewable power.

To the future,

Sam R, Sam LR and Adam, for the GetUp team

References
[1] ‘Its the revenue stupid – Ideas for a brighter budget, The Australia Institute, May 2015
[2] Carmichael mine’s new hurdle: analysts predict India’s coal imports zero by 2021, The Guardian, 11 August 2015
[3] Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables, Bloomberg, 15 April 2015
[4] Coal-fired power stations ‘to close’, The Times, 6 October 2015
[5] Josh Frydenberg says $5 billion northern Australia fund could be used to finance coal, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2015