Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As so many of my colleagues have done, I rise today to speak about the People's Climate March that took place in Canberra yesterday but also at other locations right across the world. More than 6,000 people turned out for the march in Canberra yesterday, with a great showing from ACT Labor and from LEAN . They joined more than 120,000 people around the nation. Around the world, more than 600,000 people took to the streets. That is an enormous amount of people, who are all calling for better outcomes at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change which starts in Paris today. They were calling for real action on climate change.

That is why I am so proud Labor has committed to net zero emissions by 2050 in an effort to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius. To achieve this 2050 target, Labor will consult on the Climate Change Authority's 2030 baseline target of a 45 per cent reduction in carbon pollution on 2005 levels.

Australia goes to the Paris climate change conference as the only nation that has actually gone backwards on climate action in the past two years. Now is the time for the government to listen to what those 6,000 Canberrans were demanding yesterday; now is the time for the Prime Minister to listen to what those 120,000 Australians were demanding yesterday: we are calling for real action on climate change, and we want it now.