Philippa Rowland, one of the founding members of Clean Energy for Eternity, is Paris-bound, keen to play a role in shaping a safer climate future for the world. Philippa intends to bear witness at a pivotal time in the world’s response to a warming atmosphere.
“If we turn the corner now we still have time,” she said.
“There’s a lot we can do as individuals. We can do so much more as communities, but unless we can also have an influence on policy, we can go backwards quite fast.”
It is that focus on changing policy that drives Philippa towards France as a representative of the community-based Climate Action Network.
Philippa is deeply honoured to be playing a role in Paris, building on her experience at the 2009 UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Paris must succeed where Copenhagen failed. What is needed is a new international agreement on climate change, applicable to all countries, that kept global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
“Climate change is now a lived experience, one of the shocking things about climate change is the injustice at the fact that the impact falls hardest on those who are unable to deal with it”. In the lead-up to the talks, countries have flagged proposed pollution cuts and clean energy measures in order to meet a binding target.
“We know they’re not enough, but it’s more a sense that people are offering up what they can do,” she said.
“There is an opportunity to actually tap into what a better future can look like and put your energy into creating that better future.”
Ms Rowland is more hopeful of a positive approach under new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull than under Tony Abbott’s leadership.
“There’s a sense that we may become a country that stands up to its own responsibility,” she said.