World leaders are to meet in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in an attempt to control greenhouse gas emissions. But after their failure to reach the modest target set at Kyoto of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 5.2% from 1990 levels we should not expect that whatever agreement [...]

On the 20th anniversary of 1989…
When the Berlin wall was dismantled in 1989 and Stalinist regimes came crashing down, capitalism declared itself victorious. The collapse of Stalinism was used in a global ideological offensive against socialism, which was unjustly equated with that dictatorial, bureaucratic system, to drive through brutal, neo-liberal capitalist policies worldwide. In this [...]

According to a new study by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, the worst drought ever seen in south east Australia is a direct consequence of global warming.
By Kirk Leonard, Socialist Party

A few hundred people rallied in inner northern Melbourne on Sunday against the closure of the Solar Systems factory. The rally heard speakers from local environment groups, the manufacturing workers union, internet lobby group Get Up and the Greens. A Solar Systems worker who was recently made redundant also addressed the crowd.
By Socialist Party reporters [...]

Socialist policies urgently needed!
Climate change is already with us. Temperatures are increasing, polar ice caps melting, glaciers retreating, sea levels rising, biodiversity being lost, food production being threatened, water scarcity spreading.
By Dave Nellist, Socialist Party

“The Black Saturday fires created winds of 120km/h that snapped trees in half. The fires created their own weather, triggering storm clouds and lightning strikes that started more fires.
By Pete Mason, Socialist Party

New research is claiming that concentrations of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas, CO2) will remain high for at least 1,000 years, even if greenhouse gases are eliminated in the next few decades.
By Pete Dickenson, Socialist Party

Urgent action needed to protect the environment!
The above headline may read like the title of a dodgy 1980’s pop song, but the reality is much worse. The Kyoto Protocol was the ‘green’ buzz-word of the 1990’s, an agreement among the world’s capitalist leaders which was supposed to solve the global warming crisis.
By Ger Hughes, Socialist [...]

The Victorian government’s plan to build one of the biggest desalination plants in the world, in South Gippsland, appears at face value a solution to Victoria’s water crisis. Although it’s despite Labor’s election mandate of 2006 to outright reject the desalination plant.
By Kylie McGregor, Socialist Party

SP Newsletter No.266
Radical action on climate change was central to Labor’s 2007 election campaign. Yet the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) - which includes a dismal target of 5 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 - is a joke.