Youth Decide '09 is a national youth vote on climate change.
The more greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere the worse climate change will get.This December countries will agree on a global limit on greenhouse gases at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Countries will each set targets for how much they will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020. Australia will have to decide our target as well.
The targets that are chosen will determine the kind of world we will inherit.
Australia's young people (4.8 million between the age of 12 and 29) can be a voice for their generation: both here in Australia and for those poor countries and communities around the world who will be most affected by climate change.
I'm voting online and I'm going to the concert on Wednesday in Fed Square (Cat Empire!!!) but I'm voting for 25-40%. Because although we'd love to avoid many of the consequences likely to result from 10-40% of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, we've got to be realistic about this. Countries like Germany are well on their way to acheiving 40% by 2020; Australia is not, even below 1990 levels. If we can stablise emissions somewhere around 450 ppm - current levels around approx 385 ppm - hopefully we can avoid more than 2 degrees of global warming, because anything above this is thought to have particularly dangerous implications for the percentage of threatened species/rates of extinction, ability for ecosystems to adapt, increase in extreme weather events and changes in rainfall patterns, not to mention sea levels rising.
YOUth decide!
x
JAG
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