Education unions from around the world have written a strident rebuke of the Morrison Government’s environmental record calling for urgent action to address the climate emergency after Australia’s devastating bushfire season.
In strongly worded messages, unions from Uruguay to Ukraine, Belgium to Bulgaria wrote separately to the Prime Minister in early February expressing solidarity with communities affected by the bushfires and called on the Federal Government to acknowledge the climate research and take immediate action.
“We acknowledge the hardship and trauma suffered by students and teachers in many schools and colleges as a result of this unprecedented crisis,” they wrote. “We also note that impact of these fires is being felt globally.
“Many experts have warned that unmitigated climate change would result in longer and more intense bushfire seasons, and yet your government failed to respond adequately to these risks and refused to accept any link between the catastrophic conditions and climate change,” the unions wrote, many in their native language.
In a circular to affiliated unions, the global peak body for education unions Education International requested they write to Scott Morrison and send a copy to the Australian Embassy in their country. “The failure of the Morrison Government to adequately respond to clearly identifiable risks is inexcusable,” President Michael Gilchrist said.
Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos said statements of solidarity came from across the globe with some teacher unions asking whether they could donate money.
“What a great gesture of solidarity!” he said. “However, Australia is an aid exporting country with others in so much need. The best thing our sister unions could do as internationalists is to elevate the issue of the climate emergency in their own unions, in their own countries. It’s an indictment of our government that there should even be any discussion about donations in this situation.”
The National Education Association, which represents 3 million educators in the US, said it joined with the global education community in censuring the Prime Minister.
“[The NEA] urges your government to take immediate action to address the climate emergency and to acknowledge climate change driven by human activities is a serious threat to a better and more sustainable world for all,” its President, Lily Eskelsen Garcia wrote.
New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Union took aim at the Morrison Government’s claims about the level of Australia’s carbon emissions and coal exports as it called for decisive action.
“That action must include ending all exports of fossil fuels and moving away from policies based on the premise that Australia is responsible for only 1.3 per cent of global carbon emissions. It is not,” President Michael Gilchrist wrote.
“A report prepared for the Australian Conservation Foundation found that if exported fossil fuels are added to domestic use, Australia’s carbon footprint ‘is equivalent to the total emissions of Russia, which is ranked the fifth biggest CO2 emitter globally’.
“Further, Australia is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change and one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It has a crucial role to play in reducing actual carbon emissions and in demonstrating the political will and the practical ability to do so.”
Among nations whose unions wrote to the Prime Minister were Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Brazil, Casablanca, Cote D’Ivoire, Cyprus Turkish Teachers’ Trade Union, the canton of Martigny in Switzerland, New Zealand’s Post Primary Teachers’ Association and Tertiary Education Union, Philippines, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, and the US National Education Association.
Scott Coomber is a staff writer