100 signatures reached
To: Western Sydney University - Executives
Support the Sept 20 Climate Strike!
We, the WSU Climate Caucus and WSU NTEU branch, support the Sept 20 Strike and call on our government to take urgent and essential action on climate change by committing to the following policies at minimum:
· 100% publicly owned renewable energy by 2030
· A just transition of the workforce
· No new sources of fossil fuels
We applaud VC Barney Glover’s declaration of a Climate Emergency at the July WSU C3 Congress. We further encourage the WSU Executive team to show leadership in Western Sydney by supporting this climate action. We ask WSU to announce the shutdown of the University on September 20 without any financial or academic penalties for staff and students who attend.
· 100% publicly owned renewable energy by 2030
· A just transition of the workforce
· No new sources of fossil fuels
We applaud VC Barney Glover’s declaration of a Climate Emergency at the July WSU C3 Congress. We further encourage the WSU Executive team to show leadership in Western Sydney by supporting this climate action. We ask WSU to announce the shutdown of the University on September 20 without any financial or academic penalties for staff and students who attend.
Why is this important?
We, the students and staff from Western Sydney University support the call from the global high school student climate strike movement for a worldwide day of action on September 20, and we pledge to join them. WSU's SRC, Environmental Collective (and more) supports the Strike and encourage our staff and students to attend.
As teachers, researchers, students, and staff at WSU, we are particularly aware of the importance of fostering action that supports our incredibly diverse community. For many in Western Sydney, the climate emergency is as much a cultural and economic challenge as it is an environmental one. Our Indigenous, immigrant, and working-class communities will bear the brunt of the cultural and economic challenges that the climate crisis will bring. As a region with large flood plains, we will also be a the frontline of the environmental damage wrought by rising seas.
WSU has the most students of any university in NSW from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Pasifika, refugee, and low SES backgrounds. We are therefore especially aware of the need to care for the country on which Western Sydney was built, to act urgently to protect those nations in the Pacific most immediately at risk of rising sea levels, to open our arms to those that the climate crisis inevitably will displace, and to ensure there is a secure and just transition of the workforce to a sustainable economy.
We cannot simply ask Australians to continue going to school, university or work while we collectively catapult towards the consequences of climate inaction.
The call for action from school students says:
“Australia is already on the front-line of the climate crisis. Prolonged drought. Flash flooding. Catastrophic bush-fires, severe cyclones and heat waves. But just at the time when we need to ramp up climate solutions, we have elected a Government that wants to open the floodgates to new coal, oil and gas projects that put all of us at risk.
So, on September 20, three days before the UN Emergency Climate Summit, school students are inviting everyone to join us for our biggest ever global #ClimateStrike. By taking time off school and work together around the world, we’ll show our politicians that people everywhere want climate justice and we’re not going away until we get it. We’ll strike in solidarity for everyone who’s already being hurt by the climate crisis and everyone who will be impacted if we don’t act now: workers, first nations people, young people, mining communities and more. Everyone is invited, everyone is needed.”
Please listen to their call, and our call, for the future.
As teachers, researchers, students, and staff at WSU, we are particularly aware of the importance of fostering action that supports our incredibly diverse community. For many in Western Sydney, the climate emergency is as much a cultural and economic challenge as it is an environmental one. Our Indigenous, immigrant, and working-class communities will bear the brunt of the cultural and economic challenges that the climate crisis will bring. As a region with large flood plains, we will also be a the frontline of the environmental damage wrought by rising seas.
WSU has the most students of any university in NSW from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Pasifika, refugee, and low SES backgrounds. We are therefore especially aware of the need to care for the country on which Western Sydney was built, to act urgently to protect those nations in the Pacific most immediately at risk of rising sea levels, to open our arms to those that the climate crisis inevitably will displace, and to ensure there is a secure and just transition of the workforce to a sustainable economy.
We cannot simply ask Australians to continue going to school, university or work while we collectively catapult towards the consequences of climate inaction.
The call for action from school students says:
“Australia is already on the front-line of the climate crisis. Prolonged drought. Flash flooding. Catastrophic bush-fires, severe cyclones and heat waves. But just at the time when we need to ramp up climate solutions, we have elected a Government that wants to open the floodgates to new coal, oil and gas projects that put all of us at risk.
So, on September 20, three days before the UN Emergency Climate Summit, school students are inviting everyone to join us for our biggest ever global #ClimateStrike. By taking time off school and work together around the world, we’ll show our politicians that people everywhere want climate justice and we’re not going away until we get it. We’ll strike in solidarity for everyone who’s already being hurt by the climate crisis and everyone who will be impacted if we don’t act now: workers, first nations people, young people, mining communities and more. Everyone is invited, everyone is needed.”
Please listen to their call, and our call, for the future.