If the New South Wales government and opposition want to stop disruptive climate protests, the answer may be hiding in plain sight, and it’s not jailing protesters.
Deanna “Violet” Coco was sentenced last week to a non-parole period of eight months, with a total sentence up to 15 months. She was denied bail.
It stems from her arrest after blockading a lane of traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in April, as part of a Fireproof Australia climate action.
Fireproof Australia describes itself as “a politically unaffiliated group of ordinary citizens taking action to force our government to respond urgently to the climate crisis”.
And it comes after protesters were arrested in police raids on a protest camp in Colo in June.
Some of those arrested were charged with affray — a serious crime carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.
Ms Coco was the first to be sentenced under strict anti-protest laws in NSW, introduced in April, and which passed with the support of the state opposition.
In response to critics, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said the outcome was “pleasing to see” and if “protesters want to put our way of life at risk, then they should have the book thrown at them”.
“We want people to be able to protest, but you should do it in a way that doesn’t inconvenience people right across New South Wales,” the Premier said earlier this week.
He’s right. At least in his description of climate protests. They are inconvenient. That’s the point.
Climate protests are specifically intended to give a small, controlled taste of the major disruptions that climate change is already causing, and will cause on a much larger scale in future.
The performative protests are meant to spur action now to avoid the worst of the real-life scenarios to come.
Occupying parks with placards may be more palatable to a portion of the public, but that’s also why activists don’t choose that strategy — no-one, including the media, takes any notice.
In introducing laws that target disruption — in particular the blocking of roads — New South Wales has, intentionally or otherwise, specifically targeted climate activism.
In doing so, they’re also potentially introducing many young, otherwise law-abiding citizens into the criminal justice system, while curtailing a freedom of protest that democracies are built on.
Women’s suffrage and the eight-hour working day were fought for using methods that were, in the short term, inconvenient.
Fights for racial equality have and continue to use methods that, for some, are inconvenient.
There are old-growth forests standing today thanks to protest methods that were inconvenient.
Human Rights Watch has called the sentencing of Ms Coco “incredibly alarming”; the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly has condemned the sentence; Amnesty International Australia has called it “incredibly concerning”.
Protests in the wake of the sentencing have also sprung up, including the blocking of Castlereagh Street in Sydney’s CBD, as Ms Coco’s supporters marched to the Downing Centre Court.
Ms Coco’s lawyers said there were no reports of arrests.
Another protest is planned tonight in Canberra.
What options does NSW have?
The government has several options regarding its treatment of climate protests and protesters. But only one ticks the boxes of removing both their justification for disruption, while preserving the democratic right to protest.
The first option is to carry on with the hardline approach, which will undoubtedly see more people locked up.
With criminal records, they may also be less able to contribute to society upon their release.
The second is to repeal the laws. In that scenario, we might see more or a similar amount of disruptive protests than with the first option, but we’ll also see, by definition, less criminality.
The third option seems somewhat obvious to point out. Yet in the climate change space, somehow it’s the most oft-overlooked. Australian governments, including New South Wales, could adjust their climate policies in line with the science.
Were New South Wales — or for that matter, the federal government — already doing so, it’s unlikely Ms Coco’s protest would have happened.
But they’re not.
New South Wales has a target of 50 per cent emissions reduction by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, and a net-zero 2050 target.
But research from some of Australia’s most qualified climate scientists estimates that for Australia to do its part in keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need to be hitting a 74 per cent reduction by 2030, with net zero by 2035.
Even for 2C of warming, which is a scenario with much greater repercussions for biodiversity, sea-level rise, coral reefs, and extreme weather, net zero needs to be reached by 2045.
And yes, as is often pointed out in these debates, Australia only contributes around 1.2 per cent of global emissions.
But that’s domestic emissions only.
The International Energy Agency warned last year that to achieve global net zero by 2050, there must be “from today, no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects, and no further final investment decisions for new unabated coal plants”.
Yet over a year later, New South Wales has 17 planned coal projects, or extensions to existing projects, in the pipeline, according to NSW Mining.
Coal remains the state’s greatest export earner, with production second only to Queensland. And that’s not to mention oil and gas.
A 2019 study from the Australia Institute estimated that Australia’s fossil fuel export emissions were the third-highest fossil fuel export emissions in the world, behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia.
For those concerned about climate breakdown, and who follow the science, it would appear that the NSW and Australian governments aren’t doing enough.
In the context of climate tipping points, more extreme weather events, food instability, and mass displacement, perhaps it is less radical to risk arrest than to continue investing in fossil fuels.
If our governments were to follow the science, there might not be a need for either.
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