This monday saw the launch of Safe Climate Australia, a non-government organisation formed by a group of scientists, and community and corporate leaders who aim to end Australia’s reliance on cheap coal for electricity.

Safe Climate Australia will build on a range of international innovation and transition projects such as Repower America, which target energy efficiency and renewable generation, a modern national smart grid and electrification of transport as key actions in addressing global warming, energy security and peak oil.

Inspired by these projects, the purpose of Safe Climate Australia is to identify and catalyse action on the societal transformations and solutions needed to achieve a safe climate for Australia, and for the planet, at emergency speed. The structural change achieved in the next ten years is crucial.

Safe Climate Australia was launched by the Nobel Prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore. In an impressive speech, Gore likened last years Australian bushfires as evidence that the planet had a “fever”:

“It’s difficult to ignore the fact that cyclones are getting stronger, that the fires are getting bigger, that the sea level is rising, that the refugees are beginning to move from places they have long called home,” Gore said.

“The odds have been shifted so heavily that fires that used to be manageable now threaten to spin out of control and wreak damages that are far beyond what was experienced in the past.”(Read More)

For more information on Safe Climate Australia, click here, or follow this link for video excerpts of Al Gore’s speech (which for some reason refuse to embed here, apologies in advance). and see below for a clip from an ABC interview:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2sn6vAkLMA&w=560&h=340]