JB in Australia
I recently visited Australia to give the sustainability keynote at IFACCA's 5th World Summit on Arts and Culture, in Melbourne as a guest of the British Council, followed by a fortnight of workshops and public talks on the role of the arts and culture in responding to climate change. The decision by IFACCA to have a sustainability keynote was too good to turn down.
The international community at IFACCA, representing some 80 arts councils and delegates from all over the world, not only raised the profile of climate change and the arts but also encapsulated the core dilemmas. This collection of delegates have very different starting points – political, historical, geographical and economic – and the need to balance social justice and access for developing countries with existing entitlements while keeping all our economies moving is an awesome task. There are island states, developing economies reliant on increasing energy consumption, Eurozone nations hunkering down, new powerhouses of eastern and southern innovation and, of course, our Australian hosts who were right in the middle of a public and divisive debate on the carbon tax. Julia Gillard won the vote but not without vociferous opposition he opposition best summed up by Tony Abbott's widely quoted "blood oath." And that was nothing to the TV ad campaign – anyone would think that reducing carbon meant the end of the known world...
Just before I left for Australia the Arts Council had published its new funding requirement for environmental policy and planning, and it was fantastic to be able to present this as international best practice, especially as Alan Davey is the chair of IFACCA; the gauntlet was thrown. I really hope it’s picked up elsewhere.
The following two weeks was spent with the arts and cultural community discussing what it would mean for them to come together and take to scale their envioronmental commitments across art form and state – not unlike JB in the UK. All the while the carbon tax argument was relentlessly played out until resolved a couple of days before I came home. The polarization of opinion was very interesting in a country host to the world's largest and deeply stressed coral reef; drought and water shortages have resulted in massive investment in desalination, yet the price of water is lower than it is in the UK; CO2 emissions per capita in Australia are higher than anywhere else in world, and it is experiencing extreme weather events – but what a beautiful country with enormous potential for renewable energy.
I met really committed and focused arts leaders who really want to do something big about climate change. In the short time that they've been tackling their environmental impacts they have done amazing things. Organisations such as Sydney Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Peats Ridge Festival, TippingPoint Australia, and the Australia Council for the Arts (through a collaboration with IETM and Julie's Bicycle), have been accelerating the adoption of this issue as a fundamental priority.
British Council Australia have been very helpful and committed to action, and JB will continue to support the Australian arts and cultural community wherever we can be of added value. Watch this space!
