TWO of Australia’s largest youth organisations, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) and Oaktree, have called for leadership from Malcolm Turnbull on climate change, poverty and inequality in an open letter being presented to Mr Turnbull at his Sydney offices on Wednesday, September 30, at 11am.
The open letter highlights young people’s desire to see leadership in the face of a leadership merry-go-round that has not addressed the challenges of today.
“Whether it’s climate change, extreme poverty or pervasive inequality, the challenges our generation is facing are enormous yet our politicians aren’t living up to the task,” Chris Wallace, CEO of Oaktree, said.
“We deal not in bold solutions for the challenges we face, but in three word slogans, personality politics, and a leadership merry-go-round. We can do better. We must do better.”
“Young Australians want a Government that acts with courage and leadership on the big challenges of climate change, extreme poverty and inequality,” Kirsty Albion, National Director of the AYCC, said.
“We hope the Government and Malcolm Turnbull as our new Prime Minister take a moment to consider the world they are leaving young people, and decisively do more on these key issues”.
The open letter calls on Malcolm Turnbull to commit to:
– Making a $400 million contribution to international climate finance – funds that will allow developing countries to adapt to climate change.
– A pollution reduction target that will keep global temperature rise below 1.5 °C.
– 100% renewable energy by 2030
– Increasing the aid budget to 0.7% of GNI by 2030.
Together the AYCC and Oaktree represent over 310,000 young people.
Ryan Fritz
Ryan Fritz started The Advocate in 2014 to provide not-for-profits and charities another media platform to tell their worthwhile hard news stories and opinion pieces effortlessly. In 2020, Ryan formed a team of volunteer journalists to help spread even more high-quality stories from the third sector. He also has over 10 years experience as a media and communications professional for not-for-profits and charities and currently works at Redkite, a childhood cancer charity.
