About 25,000 people have signed a petition, sponsored by Australia's religious communities, calling for stronger action on climate change.
The Community Climate Petition is supported by a coalition of faith-based organisations including the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) and Catholic groups such as Caritas Australia, Catholic Earthcare and the Edmund Rice Centre.
Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus have been collecting signatures in mosques, churches, high schools and local businesses in what organisers have described as one of the largest grassroots climate petitions in Australian history.
Caritas Australia’s Head of Advocacy, Ms Negaya Chorley, said there was both a moral imperative and an urgent need to take action.
“The impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt across Australia and the world, including extreme weather events of greater frequency and ferocity, an alarming depletion in our natural heritage including the Great Barrier Reef and drought-induced famines affecting millions of people," Ms Chorley said.
The petition urges Australia's political leaders to support deeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a faster transition to a clean energy economy and better support for Australia's poorest neighbours responding to the impacts of climate change.
At a recent Caritas seminar in Fiji, Fr Michael McKenzie from the Diocese of Tarawa in Kiribati said: "For us climate change is a life issue – people are trying to cope with it day by day. For the rest of the world it is an economic issue."
The campaign has included a multifaith rally at Parliament House in Canberra calling for bipartisan action on climate change.
Groups such as ARRCC have also participated in other action on environmental issues, such as vigils at MPs' offices, including one in July at the Melbourne constituency office of the Federal Minister for the Environment and Energy, Mr Josh Frydenberg, urging him to revoke environmental approval for the controversial Adani coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin, describing the proposed venture as immoral.
PICTURE: Sheep stand in a dry paddock at the drought effected "Bando" property in, NSW in 2014. A combination of low rainfall and high temperatures created the most severe drought conditions in parts of Queensland and New South Wales ever recorded
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