On Wednesday 26 February, five years since the devastating Black Summer bushfires, survivors will gather in Sydney to launch and sign onto a new Australian Bushfire Survivor Declaration, which calls on Australia’s governments to put human lives before the profits of the fossil fuel industry.
To mark the sombre anniversary Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action (BSCA) has invited politicians from fire-impacted regions to meet with bushfire survivors and hear their calls for urgent climate action.
The event will include the launch of the Australian Bushfire Survivor Declaration which calls on all governments to:
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Unite behind 1.50C-aligned climate targets and put politicisation of climate action behind us
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Stay the course on the rollout of Australia's renewable energy future - supporting all communities to benefit from it
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Commit to a total phase out of polluting fossil fuels and develop a plan to do so
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Invest deeply in communities and be guided by them, so they can prepare for and recover from future climate disasters
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Raise the money required to pay the escalating climate damage bill by making the big fossil fuel polluters pay
“We formed in 2018 to call for urgent climate action because climate change had arrived, and was harming our communities directly through longer and more dangerous fire seasons. And yet since then we’ve seen more than 3800 homes burned or damaged, and at least 46 lives lost directly to fires, and many more claimed by the lasting toll of grief and health impacts,” said Jo Dodds, President and Co-Founder of BSCA. “While survivors raise the alarm, the fires are only getting worse.”
“In spite of the progress this country has made, we can and must do so much better. So we are calling on our governments to put human lives before the profits of the fossil fuel industry, to stay the course on the rollout of Australia's renewable energy future and commit to a total phase out of polluting fossil fuels,” BSCA CEO Serena Joyner said. “ And with the damage bill growing from unnatural disasters, it just makes sense to raise the money required to pay the escalating climate damage bill by making the big fossil fuel polluters pay.”
BSCA has invited the Prime Minister, key Ministers and Senators, and MPs and some candidates from fire-affected regions. If any parliamentarian is unable to attend, a bushfire survivor will sit in their place and bring the message back to them in the weeks and months following the event.
The Bushfire Survivor Declaration will go live via this link at 7pm on Wednesday 26 February 2025.
Bushfire survivors from regions including the south coast of NSW, mid-north coast of NSW, the Blue Mountains, Hobart, Kangaroo Island and Canberra are available for interview.
Media enquiries: Jemimah Taylor, 0478 924 425 or jemimah.taylor@climatemediacentre.org.au
About Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action:
Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action (BSCA) is a non-partisan, community organisation made up of bushfire survivors, firefighters and their families working together to call on our leaders to take action on climate change. BSCA formed in 2018, and its founding members were all impacted by bushfires, including Tathra 2018, the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20, Blue Mountains in 2013, Black Saturday in 2009 and Canberra in 2003.
BSCA has been at the cutting edge of legal reform to reduce climate emissions and hold governments, agencies and companies to account. In 2021 we took the NSW Environment Protection Authority to court challenging them on their lack of action on climate change and won. Our landmark win in the NSW Land and Environment Court was the first time that an Australian Court ordered a government to take meaningful action on climate change.