SYDNEY (Reuters) – Student activists converged on the Australian prime minister’s official residence on Friday to demand stronger action against climate change, with recent floods that killed at least 20 people giving their campaign a sense of urgency.
Hundreds of school students, young trade union members and indigenous Australians chanted and waved placards at Kirribilli House as part of what they said was a global protest.
“What I do wish for is a government that is not in denial and one that listens to the science and the people,” 13-year-old Ella O’Dwyer-Oshlack, who lost her home and her school in the recent floods, told the crowd.
Climate change is a charged political issue in Australia which is a major producer of coal and gas and has long been criticised for being one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters on a per capita basis.
Australia has a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but activists say that date is too distant.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was not at the residence during the protest, told reporters he took climate change seriously.
“It’s not just about reducing emissions,” said Morrison, who is facing a general election within weeks.
“You’ve got to deal with the built-up, existing impact of climate change. The impacts of weather events and these things are the product of things that have been happening for decades. We have to build up our resilience and adaptation.”
Climate experts have said the recent flooding was linked to a protracted La Niña weather pattern.
A royal commission investigation into the worst bushfires in a generation in 2019 and 2020 partly blamed climate change and warned that extreme weather would become more frequent due to global warming.
(Reporting by Cordelia Hsu and James Redmayne; Writing by Byron Kaye; Editing by Robert Birsel)
