Published: 16 February 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) spoke then for the Jewish community and has since displayed on its website a strong Climate Change policy that recognises climate change as a major challenge facing Australia and the world and supports strong action to tackle it, including legislation to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, to set a national price on greenhouse emissions, to implement a massive deployment of clean energy technologies and to contribute to international leadership on climate change.
The 13 years since have seen little effective national climate action, however, while conservative federal governments have abolished the Climate Commission, repealed the price on carbon, rejected the National Energy Guarantee, and actively promoted more dependence on coal and other fossil fuels.
As our national bushfire catastrophe unfolded this summer, a number of Australian Jewish organisations prepared a fresh call for serious climate action. The ECAJ was invited to join and lead that call. To our surprise, it not only declined to do so, it also pressured some others not to support the call.
Moreover, when ‘Beyond politics – a Jewish call for serious climate action’ was issued, and the ECAJ was asked whether it agreed with the call or part of it, the response was “we have no comment to make on this”. When asked the same question, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (NSWJBD) said “as the issue is directed to the federal government, we defer to the ECAJ to respond”.
On this most critical Australian and global matter, therefore, the ECAJ is currently, and inexplicably, missing in action. It is also out of step with the great majority of Australians, including very many members of the Jewish community, who, surveys show, are extremely concerned about climate change and want serious action to tackle it and despite the fact that the ECAJ website says of its policies, including its Climate Change policy, that they “are derived from the beliefs and values of the Australian Jewish community”.
Unless it reconsiders and changes course, the ECAJ also risks being perceived as kowtowing to a Liberal-National Coalition that is deeply divided over climate change and coal.
Unless it reconsiders and changes course, the ECAJ also risks being perceived as kowtowing to a Liberal-National Coalition that is deeply divided over climate change and coal, even though the ECAJ has itself previously described this issue as one of high moral principle.
We also respectfully remind the NSWJBD that taking and urging action to tackle climate change is the responsibility of all levels of government, of leaders at every level in civil society, of business people, of ethnic and faith communities, of households and of every individual citizen. The Australian states, for example, have all committed to aim for zero emissions by 2050 which the federal government has to date refused to do.
There is still time - though time is fast running out - for the ECAJ and its affiliates to show principled leadership again on this, the most serious issue of this century.
ROBIN MARGO
Photo: Quartz
