The fourth Beyond Coal and Gas Jamboree in June 2018 will bring together over 350 people from grassroots communities across Australia and internationally, leading campaigns for the coal, gas and energy movements.
These campaigners are fighting to protect their land, water and future, working from NSW’s Hunter Valley to South Australia’s Port Augusta, Queensland’s Darling Downs to the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Gas Basin. A key focus of the conference is the campaign to stop the controversial Adani coal mine.
This is a rare opportunity for different groups to meet in one location and at one time, in a demonstration of the grassroots social democracy movement of ordinary people, farmers and rural communities fighting to protect their communities from mining.
Over three days there will be 6 plenaries and 75 workshops which aim to address some big issues facing campaigns to push Australia beyond fossil fuels, from Indigenous communities protecting Country to how to shift the politics of climate change.
John Hepburn, Executive Director of The Sunrise Project, convening the conference under direction of a community organising committee, writes:
“Tens of thousands of people around Australia are fighting fossil fuel expansion and championing the shift to clean energy that is taking the world by storm. For some, particularly First Nations people and farmers, the fight has chosen them as they struggle to protect the places they love.’
The Beyond Coal and Gas Conference boasts a great lineup of national and international speakers who’ll join with 350 people from all walks of life who are involved with the social movement to phase out fossil fuels and transition to a future powered by renewable energy.
The last year has been huge for our movement. It has seen the birth of an Australian-wide campaign to Stop Adani, senior Federal Ministers wave lumps of coal around in Parliament, renewable energy under attack, a Northern Territory fracking inquiry and farmers from Acland take on a coal expansion in one of the longest court cases in the history of the Queensland Land Court.
This is a chance for our remarkable social movement to come together and discuss how best to defend our communities, our natural heritage and the global climate from the impacts of the fossil fuel industry.”