Senator Christine Milne, the deputy leader and climate change spokesperson for the Australian Greens, gave a really inspiring speech as the televised National Press Club address on the ABC today. I'm not sure whether any of the video will turn up on Youtube or elsewhere. If you get the chance, set the recorder for ABC1 from 3.25am to 4.25am tonight (that's Thursday morning June 18) to catch the repeat.

Senator Milne's prepared text is as follows. Source and accompanying press release at her website, part of the greensmps.org.au empire:

Thank you for your warm welcome. I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal
people, the traditional owners of the land.

Gandhi once said, "The difference between what we do and what we are
capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."

We have reached a point in human history where 'what we do' on this
planet imperils our survival. Now is the moment to re-imagine and
reconsider 'what we are capable of doing'.

As Kofi Annan said recently, "The world is at a crossroads. [The
Copenhagen] negotiators [must] come to the most ambitious agreement ever
negotiated or continue to accept mass starvation, mass sickness and mass
migration on an ever growing scale. Weak leadership," he said, "is
failing humanity."

So what is stopping us from achieving what we are capable of, of
reaching 'the most ambitious agreement ever negotiated'?

ABARE, the Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, last year
unwittingly provided me with the answer! They had sought a meeting on
their latest modelling of the economic costs of climate action. I asked
them what atmospheric carbon concentrations they were assuming in their
models and was astonished to hear that they had modelled nothing lower
than 575 parts per million - a level that every projection tells us
would trigger catastrophic climate change.

When I suggested that it might be appropriate to run their models using
scenarios that have some hope of constraining global warming to merely
dangerous levels, even down as low as 350 ppm to deliver a safe climate,
my astonishment was matched by theirs.

"But, Senator," came the reply, "that would be a different world!"

Exactly!

This is a cultural problem. It is not a lack of climate science that
holds back action. It is how we respond to the challenge that the
science poses, and that is deeply cultural. It is the values that we
bring to bear, what we think is good for us, our religious
underpinnings, our view of power and opportunity, of what is possible in
the world and Australia's place in it. All these value judgements stop
us from embracing change.

Machiavelli understood human nature when in the 15th Century, he said

It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more
difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain
in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order
of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done
well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may
do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the
opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the
incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they
have had a long experience of them.

In Australia, the dominant economic, social and therefore Labor and
Coalition view, is that resource extraction underpins wealth, power and
influence - always has and always will. Regardless of the physical
capacity of the Earth to sustain it, regardless of the collapse of the
Murray Darling or the climate impact of burning more coal or logging
more forests, nothing will stand in the way of that extraction
continuing. All policies to address climate change are seen through
that cultural lens.

That is why we did not have a Green New Deal in Australia linking
climate policies with economic stimulus and it is why we engage in
special pleading in international climate negotiations.

It is why, when people hear the climate science telling us that, if we
do not act swiftly and decisively, the world we hand on to our children
will be a very different, much poorer world, so many jump through hoops
to deny it, to explain it away, or to pretend that we can compromise
with the laws of physics and chemistry to suit own imperatives. It is no
wonder, as Ian Dunlop observed recently, "climate policy and climate
science are like ships passing in the night."

The truth is the climate nightmare is real and happening now. We are
destroying the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu and the snow caps. We are
eroding our beaches, and our coastal cities will face managed retreat
due to sea level rise. We are drying our food bowl, the Murray Darling,
beyond repair, jeopardising rural communities and our food security.

Many of our Asia Pacific neighbours are struggling with rising seas and
extreme weather which threatens a refugee crisis beyond anything we've
ever seen.

The Himalayan glaciers, which feed all the major rivers of Asia - the
Ganges and Brahmaputra, the Mekong, the Yellow and Yangtze - are melting
away. Once they are gone, a third of the world's people face a parched,
hungry and, most likely, violent future.

Red Cross figures reveal that last year 242,662 people died because of
climate related heat waves, fires and other extreme weather events and
spreading tropical diseases, with at least 800 in Australia. According
to Nature, 15%-37% of all species on Earth will be committed to
extinction by 2050.

If the Arctic melt already underway triggers the melting of the
permafrost, belching billions of tonnes of methane into the atmosphere,
all bets are off as far as warming is concerned. Our planet will head
into a runaway heating cycle, leading to widespread inundation,
agricultural collapse, loss of drinking water for a third of the global
population, and all the geopolitical and security implications that
follow, particularly with nuclear armed giants sitting at the epicentre.

What is more alarming is that our governments, while claiming to take
responsible action, are effectively planning to let this happen. The
Rudd Government soothes critics by talking about a global target of 450
ppm CO2e while putting forward a plan that is actually consistent with
550 ppm or even higher. They also fail to say that 450 ppm would,
according to the conservative and already out-of-date IPCC estimates,
give us a 50-90% chance of exceeding 2 degrees warming, risking
triggering the nightmare scenario I just outlined.

50 to 90%.

Would you put your son or daughter on an aeroplane if you knew that it
had a 50-90% chance of crashing? If not, why would you take that risk
with the whole planet?

CSIRO scientist James Risbey who came before our recent Senate Inquiry
into Climate Policy told us that:

'a safer target would be something that would be closer
to 350 parts per million, because that would reduce the risk of
exceeding two degrees Celsius to more moderate levels.'

Dr Risbey is not a radical or an extremist. He echoes the work of great
names in climate science like NASA's James Hansen and Potsdam's John
Schellnhuber, who, together with 50 nations, are all calling for
targeting 350 ppm.

No Australian Parliamentarian can say they were not warned.

But, as the global ecosystem impacts of climate change become clearer,
policy makers are focussing more narrowly on the politics of national
sovereignty. Our governance systems are not up to the challenge. Global
warming has become just another issue to be managed in news bulletins.
Meeting after meeting, document after document are mistaken for action.
But no systemic action is being taken.

----

The fact is we cannot keep a safe climate and keep burning coal, oil and
gas, and logging our forests. One or the other must go.

That we may be undone by the refusal, for what ever reason, to believe
that another world is possible was demonstrated again this week, with
Minister Wong saying: "going further is not possible without causing
economic disruption - if it is possible at all." Minister Wong, do you
really want "running up the white flag" to be your legacy?

A self interested failure of imagination, courage and leadership
characterises the political and business establishment in this country.

So, it is the job of those who are currently lukewarm defenders of the
future, to get over fear or timidity and to move to red hot advocacy; to
get behind the community and the Greens in changing the culture, in
selling the dream.

----

Does anyone in this room not use a mobile phone? How many of you email
or update facebook with your phone?

Twenty years ago, when I first ran for Parliament in Tasmania, I was the
only candidate to have a mobile phone and it took up half my car!

It was only in the second half of the 1990s that mobiles and email
really took hold, with Australian early adopters leading the charge. Our
lives have been utterly reshaped by these technologies. Ten years from
infancy to such ubiquity that we can scarcely remember what it was like
before they ruled our lives!

In 1961 as an eight year old girl, I remember sitting by the wireless on
a dairy farm in north west Tasmania, listening to President Kennedy
promise that, within a decade, America would put a man on the moon and
bring him home safely.

Kennedy said:
I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary.
But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national
decisions or marshalled the national resources required for such
leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time
schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to ensure their
fulfilment.
But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the
moon - if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire
nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

Kennedy didn't promise to get halfway to the moon, let alone 5 to 25% of
the way there. He didn't promise to put a man on the moon if the
economic modelling looked okay.

Instead he captured the imagination, and drove the creativity and
innovative spirit of not only his own country, but of a whole generation
who came to believe that anything is possible. And, sure enough, I
remember as a 16 year old at boarding school in Hobart watching Neil
Armstrong step onto the moon. The belief that anything was possible was
a gift to my generation.

Committing to delivering a safe climate means embracing the massive
challenge of moving to zero emissions fast, frees you up to unleash
human creativity in a wave unlike anything we've seen. Just as in 1989
we could not imagine the world of the iPhone and Blackberry, in the next
20 years we can and will create something that now seems impossible.

But, if we fail to do what it takes, we will find out the hard way what
that different world will be. Whether by deliberately refusing to act
or, equally culpably, by recklessly setting our sights too low, we will
shut the door on opportunity and make only one future possible.

-----

Which brings me to the CPRS.

While the Greens have been advocating real solutions to climate change,
the Government, since its election, has been standing in the way.
Whether it is forests, a feed-in tariff or targets, we have simply been
told to sign up to their plan which we know sets its sights so low as to
actively lock out the option of success. The Greens cannot and will not
support a scheme that is environmentally ineffective and economically
inefficient.

Supporting the CPRS would mean Australia would have the same greenhouse
gas emissions in 2013 as today making deep cuts by 2020 much more
difficult and expensive than it needs to be. Rejecting the CPRS gives us
hope that real solutions could be implemented in that time bringing down
emissions far faster and cheaper.

A failure to agree this year is a better outcome than an agreement to
fail.

But isn't it better than nothing? I say no.

Incrementalism is worse than useless in the face of the climate crisis.
Just as you can't be a little bit pregnant, you can't stop climate
change by doing 5% of what is necessary. Or even 25%. If we trigger
tipping points, the heating process will gather its own momentum and
there will be nothing we can do to stop it. Doing too little to avoid
those tipping points is functionally equivalent to doing nothing.

The reason the scheme must not pass in its current form is, ironically,
exactly the reason the Government uses to say it must be passed -
because it will send a signal to Australian industry, the Australian
community and the global community that cannot be ignored. Yes, it will
send a signal, but the signal will be wrong.

The CPRS says to the rest of the world that, regardless of how much the
world must do to save the climate, Australia will do as little as we
think we can get away with. It is a completely unacceptable and
irresponsible signal.

Which countries does Australia say should do more so that we can do
less?

The UN climate change secretariat revealed on June 6th that the pledges
made by rich countries total between 16-24% below 1990. This falls well
short of what is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.

A bold global agreement needs a pooling of national sovereignty - all
countries of the world acting in our common interest, not in their short
term, election informed, national interest as the Howard Government did
in Kyoto and the Rudd Government has delivered for Copenhagen.

A bold agreement needs money on the table and an agreement to reform
global governance institutions to oversee enforcement and compliance,
rather than domestic legislation that gives a Minister the wriggle room
to decide whether target commitments have been triggered.

If Australia goes to Copenhagen legislatively constrained from agreeing
to a target higher than the 25% minimum that the world requires from
rich, high-polluting countries, the only possible impact will be to
lower the level of ambition from other developed countries, giving
succour to other recalcitrants like Canada, Japan and Russia. This in
turn makes it less likely that China, India and other large developing
nations will sign up to a deal.

The CPRS may well have provided Japan with the cover it needed to
announce its 8% target in Bonn. Chinese negotiators have slammed
Australia's targets and conditions as obnoxious. They say that, unless
countries like Australia and Japan offer targets in the order of 40% by
2020, they will not accept any kind of binding targets.

Follow the CPRS scenario to its logical conclusion and the chances of
agreement in Copenhagen look very grim indeed with Australia's 25%
conditional in the flying pig category.

The world needs a circuit-breaker - some nation to finally offer what
the science requires, not another craven compromise.

-------

Furthermore, the Greens cannot accept a scheme which is clearly geared
towards protecting the status quo, sandbagging the old resource based
economy when we need transformation.

Business needs long-term investment horizons in order to make
multi-billion dollar investments. The CPRS will provide such an
investment horizon, but it will be the wrong one. Evidence provided to
the Senate Climate Policy Committee by experts from the London Carbon
Exchange, the Productivity Commission's recent report and comments from
Sir Nicholas Stern all conclude that, if the CPRS is passed in its
current form, Australian industry and investors will be sent a very
strong signal that will drive inappropriate and misguided investments.
This signal will give business the confidence to invest in 'low
pollution' infrastructure such as gas power stations and slightly less
dirty coal rather than renewables. Yesterday's announcement expanding
Eraring coal fired power station is a case in point.

When, in a few years, we come to our senses and decide to target a safe
climate, these assets will be stranded, dropped as sunk costs and
replaced with zero emissions alternatives bought overseas. That would be
a very stupid and expensive mistake.

Professor Garnaut correctly warned that opening the floodgates to
rent-seekers is economically unjustifiable. Handing out $16 billion in
corporate polluter welfare is a grossly unacceptable transfer of wealth
from the community to the polluters.

Some 50% of the scheme's revenue - or foregone revenue, thanks to free
permits - is earmarked for shielding polluters from the scheme's impact,
and most of the rest will shield householders from the impact through
the short-sighted mechanism of cash handouts or fuel subsidies instead
of the long-sighted approach of rolling out energy efficiency upgrades
and public transport to reduce costs and pollution. A mere 3% of the
scheme's revenue will actually directly help anyone reduce emissions let
alone invest in the technologies that provide solutions and would
revitalise manufacturing here in Australia.

Finally, there is the disempowering signal the CPRS would send to the
Australian community.

People are angry because they understand that every dollar handed over
to the polluters is a dollar less to spend on community solutions. By
putting a floor under pollution levels, ensuring that Australia's
emissions cannot fall below that level no matter how hard some of us
try, the scheme has been attacked for undermining voluntary efforts to
reduce emissions, making them helpful only in reducing the price
pressure on polluters.

The root cause of that problem, and the only solution, is the target
itself. The 5% target sends a signal to give up in despair,
disempowering the whole of Australia, from householders to State
Governments. And if the Government aims so low but still manages to
convince a majority of Australians that it is doing something
worthwhile, it takes the pressure off everyone to actually do what needs
to be done.

The Government's plan locks in the nightmare. The Greens' plan would
inspire the dream.

-----

First we need a global target that can deliver a safe climate. We must
preserve the functioning of the planet's ecological systems, its
biodiversity, without which we cannot survive.

To stabilise at 350 ppm in any safe timeframe, Bill Hare of the Potsdam
Institute has calculated that the whole world economy must be carbon
neutral by 2050. That is undeniably a massive task. Prime Minister Rudd
and Minister Wong say it can't be done. But, as the ecologist Paul
Hawken said recently:

"Forget that this task of planet saving is not possible
in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not
possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was possible
after you are done."

Last week I visited the Newcastle CSIRO Energy Centre and the
University. I saw technologies ready to be scaled up and commercialised
- technology that will see solar hot water systems powering air
conditioners and solar thermal towers able to power the whole of
Australia from an area as small as 50 kilometres by 50 kilometres.
Technologies that will see solar energy delivered in flexible fabrics
like curtains and awnings. I saw technologies that can capture energy
from the vibrations of bridges and cars, not to mention capturing energy
from walking to charge mobile phones. I saw work on new community scale
wind turbines, the intelligent grid and devices that can automatically
manage household energy demand, saving huge amounts of energy and
dollars.

We humans are capable of amazing things when we set our minds to it.
Setting a zero emissions safe climate target would inspire the community
and unleash a wave of creativity, of innovative job creation that is
right now champing at the bit. Just as JFK's belief that we can do
anything was his gift to my generation, this would be our gift to
generations living now.

The political, social and economic make over required is so
transformative that it the creates the opportunity to go green fields;
to identify what we don't like about our lives and, in moving to the
zero carbon future, fix those things.

This is the silver lining in the storm clouds of the climate crisis.

By rethinking what is important to us and the way we live our lives, we
will reshape the spaces we live in and the way we are governed to build
a happier, healthier, safer community.

We can overcome our time poverty, our social isolation and loneliness,
our unhealthy sedentary lifestyles, our disconnection from nature, our
sensory overload. We can face the anxiety in the back of our minds that
we are the first generation to hand on to our children a planet in worse
repair than we have enjoyed.

Our wealth has not brought us happiness and governments are now
analysing scientifically demonstrated ways to improve well-being in
everyday life and the policy interventions that would enable them. They
are exactly the interventions that need to be made to address climate
change and peak oil. Last year, the New Economics Foundation conducted a
study for the UK Government, identifying "five ways to well-being":
connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give.

By re-designing our cities around people instead of cars, with green
spaces, cycleways and pedestrian paths, with rapid transit linking urban
villages, we will reinvigorate communities, reconnect to each other and
be more active in our daily lives.

By taking jobs to communities rather than the other way around, we can
increase work flexibility. Instead of being stuck in traffic for hours,
we can spend more time with our family and friends and in our
communities building supportive and lasting relationships.

By growing some of our own food in community gardens, by supporting
seasonal locally grown food and by relocalising services from health to
education we can build community resilience, health and well being.

By making our homes and offices more energy efficient and making
ourselves more aware of the energy we use, we connect, take notice and
learn.

By setting ourselves the massive task of reaching carbon neutrality as
fast as possible, we all give - to each other locally to globally in the
spirit of climate justice and the Millennium goals, and to the
generations that will follow us. As the NEF said, we are "hard wired to
enjoy helping one another"!

The Greens have concrete proposals to make this transformative vision a
reality: a new politics for a new century, reengaging the community and
restoring trust through transparency, equity and participation in
decision making from the local to the global.

Our policies start and end with a whole of government, systemic approach
that uses every tool at the government's disposal in a mutually
reinforcing cycle, rather than an internally inconsistent and
counterproductive one. For example, with the recent stimulus package,
the Greens negotiated a $300 million Local Green Jobs package which has
been widely praised for creating jobs while protecting the environment
and heritage and revitalising communities. This has been so successful
that we will be pressing the Government to make it part of the Budget
every year.

While putting a price on carbon is a critical part of reducing
emissions, it is far from the only tool in the toolbox. If it is to be a
useful tool, it has to be well designed. A Greens-designed emissions
trading scheme would lock in serious emissions targets and cap the use
of overseas CDM permits. It would auction all permits and recycle the
revenue into driving emissions reductions through energy efficiency, an
intelligent electricity grid, research, development and
commercialisation of renewables, and rolling out public transport
infrastructure. By implementing the polluter pays principle, we would
raise the resources to build that vision in Australia.

Importantly, we would also use some of the revenue for the urgent task
of training and redeploying the million-strong workforce we will need to
make our vision a reality. Far from climate action being a jobs
destroyer, the lack of trained workers is actually our biggest obstacle
- after the lack of political will. People who work currently in the
sunset industries have skills that we need urgently in the sunrise
industries, and the Greens would make sure that those communities
transitioning from the old, polluting economy become the first to gain.
Newcastle is a case in point. The Hunter can transform from carbon
pollution hub to the powerhouse of a carbon neutral Australia.

Contrary to the naysayers, the labour market actually has an
extraordinary capacity to handle structural change. For example, in the
decade to November 2007, employment in rural industries dropped by
almost 100,000, employment in manufacturing dropped by almost 50,000,
and employment in wholesale trade dropped by 35,000. Yet, over this
period, the unemployment rate fell from 8 and a half percent to 4%.
Similarly, over a million workers employed in February 2005 were no
longer with the same employer a year later, and over half of these
changed industry.

The Government must conduct a full jobs audit of Australia -matching the
skills of workers whose jobs are at risk with the skills we so
desperately need, and filling any gaps with targeted job creation,
education and training initiatives.

In addition to the multi-billion dollar direct investment program we
could afford if we auctioned all permits, the Greens have an array of
specific programs which can and should start immediately, cutting
emissions straight away, regardless of whether or not we can agree on
emissions trading this year.

The Greens want to see renewable energy providing 40% of our
electricity by 2020, driven by a stronger Renewable Energy Target,
supplemented by a gross national feed-in tariff that would pay a premium
rate for all renewable energy - bold, but achievable on current global
growth trajectories for many renewable energy technologies.

Farming renewable energy would no longer be a dream but a reality for
those farmers desperate to supplement their income and stay on the farm.
Every home and business could become a mini power station.

Our Energy Efficiency Access and Savings Initiative is the boldest
policy yet for retrofitting all 8 million existing homes across
Australia. We are developing new legislation to drive commercial
building efficiency, and at the industrial scale, we will again move to
require the largest energy users to not only audit their energy use but
to implement the findings of those audits. We would introduce new
standards for appliances and buildings and vehicles to maximise energy
efficiency, and support them with government procurement.

An aggressive energy efficiency rollout together with the RET, would
mean we could begin retiring coal fired power plants, something that
leading Australian climate scientists recently called for in an open
letter to Australian coal generators.

Around the world there is a deep and rising concern about biodiversity
loss and the need to give species their best chance of survival by
habitat protection and restoration. The Greens would protect the carbon
stores in our magnificent forests and native vegetation, creating
thousands of jobs in environmental stewardship in regional communities,
including remote indigenous communities. This would also improve water
supplies and increase the well being that comes from being able to enjoy
the wonder of nature. Feel Blue, Touch Green.

---------

I know this will not be easy.

But I also know that, in the face of vested interests, we have the
strongest possible allies - the people!

Politically, the Greens are at a turning point in Australia and
globally. The Global Greens are the only international political force
united around strengthening local communities and building global
citizenship. Our representation is steadily growing, with big swings in
recent European elections taking us from 35 MEPs to 46 in a Parliament
shrunk by 49 seats. In Australia, we are the third political force, with
26 State and Federal MPs - half of them women - and over 100 local
government representatives, numbers that are steadily increasing.

Outside politics, the groundswell is even faster. In kitchens,
classrooms, offices, factories, farms, campuses and communities a
powerful people's movement is burgeoning.

Addressing the Climate Summit here in Canberra in January was inspiring
- seeing some 500 people from 140 communities across Australia come
together to demand that our democratic institutions respond to the
climate crisis. Their work continued with rallies in capital cities last
weekend.

More recently, I became an ambassador for the one million women campaign
to inspire women across Australia to reduce their emissions. Not since
the women's movement in the 1960s and '70s has the call gone out to
women of all ages and all backgrounds to unite around one cause. The
Baby Boomers are retiring and radicalising again, ready to take up where
they left off! Another driver for new politics.

In just a few weeks, the wonderful young people from the Australian
Youth Climate Coalition will be holding their Powershift conference,
bringing together more than 1500 to engage in skills-sharing and
inspiring discussions before returning to their communities to drive
change. That they can do it is indisputable. Remember that the average
age of those working on the Moon Mission was 26. They were the space
generation. Old Parties and Old Polluters beware, here comes the solar
generation with a power shift in Canberra.

Philanthropists are opening their purse strings ever wider.
Institutional investors are waiting in the wings. Scientists and
technologists are beavering away across the country, coming up with
brilliant ideas most of which are yet to be tested because government
and industry have not pressed the Go button.

We are standing at an extraordinary moment in history. We must choose
the dream or face the nightmare? Hope and fear are powerful emotions,
one shrinks the space for action the other amplifies it.

If we try, we may still fail. But if we do not try, we cannot possibly
succeed.

The Greens intend to try. The community is with us. We intend to make
the difference between what we humans do now and what we are capable of
doing.

As Thoreau said:
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to
go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best
see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.