In a sign that some members
of Congress intend to hold President Joe Biden accountable
for climate promises he made as a candidate, three lawmakers
on Thursday introduced a bill directing him to declare a
national climate emergency and mobilize every resource
available to halt, reverse, mitigate, and prepare for this
crisis. Scientists and experts are clear,
this is a climate emergency and we need to take action. Rep. Earl Blumenauer
Reps. Earl
Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
joined with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to spearhead the National
Climate Emergency Act of 2021 (pdf) which builds on a
climate emergency resolution demanding a national
Foot in the door: new contract to open doors for Indigenous business
Normal text size
Advertisement
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander companies will have greater access to lucrative contracts with the NSW government as part of a drive to boost jobs and drive growth in the Indigenous business sector.
The government last year spent $92 million on goods, services and construction supplied by Aboriginal businesses, a 44 per cent increase on the previous year.
It will now seek to grow that under a new procurement policy requiring three per cent of all government goods and services contracts to be awarded to Aboriginal businesses as of January 1.
comments
This post originally appeared on Grist. Grist is a nonprofit news agency working toward a planet that doesn t burn and a future that doesn t suck. Sign up to receive Grist s top stories in your inbox.
In April of 2019, thousands of protesters descended upon London. They blocked bridges, dragged a pink boat into one of the city s central squares, and, at one point, some stripped nearly naked in the House of Commons. Their goal? Get the United Kingdom to become the first country in the world to declare a climate emergency.
After 10 days of protests, Britain s Parliament did a surprising thing: Its members approved a proposal to declare a state of emergency in response to the rapidly overheating planet. And while the U.K. was the first country to do so, it wasn t the last. Today, at least 38 countries around the world including the whole of the European Union, Japan, and New Zealand and thousands of towns, cities, and counties have issued some kind of resolut