Labor gearing up to fight election on super, parental leave and climate policies
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Labor is considering major policy promises in the lead up to the federal election, including 26 weeks of fully paid parental leave, ambitious emissions targets and a rise in the superannuation guarantee to 15 per cent.
In a 115-page platform document, which will be debated by 400 delegates at the end of the month, the opposition outlines a raft of ideas including climate policy commitments that pave the way to overtake the government’s commitment to near-term emissions reductions.
Electric vehicles and supporting infrastructure could use a jolt by Matt Swanseger
David.Sch
In order to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, Earth s dependency on fossil fuels will need to go the way of the dinosaurs.
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who set the goal, that s our only hope of limiting the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The repercussions of climate change are already being felt in the form of droughts, wildfires, flooding, and more severe and more frequent weather events. As average global temperatures rise, so do the human and economic costs.
Labor gearing up to fight election on super, parental leave and climate policies smh.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from smh.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in Hejin in central China s Shanxi Province. In fact, when one looks at the progress made in some parts of Asia, you could argue New Zealand has been dragging its feet a little. If we don’t get on with it, we could be left behind. Asian countries, particularly in South and Southeast Asia, certainly have a vested interest in slowing the worst impacts of climate change. Long coastlines and low-lying coastal cities make many countries in the region among the world’s most vulnerable to the weather extremes and rising seas levels.
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On August 31, 2019, Nadia, a stoic thirty-nine-year-old in pigtails, heard a voice through a loudspeaker on a vehicle circling the Mudd, her tranquil neighborhood in the Bahamas. “Seek shelter!” the voice said. For days, Nadia’s two sons, aged six and ten, had been watching news reports about an incoming storm called Hurricane Dorian, which broadcasters warned would cause historic destruction on the islands. “Mom, a big one’s coming,” Nadia’s ten-year-old, a skinny, bright-eyed math whiz named Kesnel, said. “We’d better board up the windows.” The next day, as the storm descended, Nadia and her sons ran to a local church for refuge. Water rushed over the chapel’s floorboards and rose past the children’s knees. Nadia wished that she could have fled the Bahamas before Dorian hit, but, like several thousands of her fellow-Haitians living there, she was undocumented, and wouldn’t have been allowed to return. (To protect them from gover