It’s time to care about Net Zero. But does reaching Net Zero really matter on an individual level and is there anything we can do, as families?
Paris climate and Glasgow can seem like far away political conferences, and certainly the local media furore about Australia’s participation and response could lead one to believe there is little hope for us making a real difference to green house gas emissions, and getting to ‘Net Zero’.
The August 2021 report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change described the situation as ‘a code red for humanity‘. The report demonstrated:
- Climate change is affecting dramatic natural disasters around the world
- Every degree and part of a degree of global warming matters
- Climate change is affected by every choice we make, measured in lives, species and livelihoods saved.
The decisions we make as nations, business and individuals this decade, could mean the difference between how today’s children and our grandchildren live their adult lives, including which ecosystems and species are learned about in history books, vs real world experience, or more dramatically, where and how they live.
One group making climate change their mission is the team behind Bright Spark Power who have just released their year 1 report, on their Ten Year Plan to get to 100% renewable energy.
It all started at a weekend BBQ in late 2016, discussing living in a time of changing climate and what impact that it will have on families’ lives in the coming decades. Delving deeper, they discovered (at the time) that over 90% of Australian electricity was being generated by fossil fuels. However, in other similar countries like Scotland, England, Germany, Netherlands and New Zealand, there was a much greater percentage of their power being generated by renewable sources such as Hydro, Wind & Solar.
CEO Arran Coughlan said, “Australia was being left behind in the shift to cleaner energy, and there was no real evidence of a plan that would change the situation. So, we asked ourselves – how could we, a few individuals, hope to drive any change in shifting Australian generation from its dependency on coal and gas, and instead generate a demand for renewable generated energy?“
Their answer was to start a new electricity retailer with the purpose of driving demand for renewable electricity.
