Tathra activist Jo Dodds takes climate message to Egypt for COP27

After watching town go up in flames, south coast activist Jo Dodds has been fighting to have her climate warning heard. The journey has led her to Egypt for COP27 climate conference.

When the Black Summer bushfires tore through the idyllic far south coast town of Tathra, many residents knew it was no ordinary blaze - it was the start of a “climate-driven” emergency.

Three years later, their mission to bring the Tathra community’s front-line fight against climate change onto the world stage has led them to Egypt for the COP27 climate conference.

The event, held in Sharm el Sheikh on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, brings together climate activists, NGOs, and world leaders from across the globe to discuss climate-related issues.

After attending the headline-grabbing conference last year in Glasgow, Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action founder and Tathra resident Jo Dodds returned to COP this year to share the south coast’s experience with climate-driven disaster.

“Australians in regional and rural communities are bearing the brunt of decades of climate inaction,” she said.

“Bushfires, floods, storms, heat waves, droughts, and sea level rises are all impacting us.

“It’s destroying homes and businesses, traumatising survivors and costing billions in recovery, insurance, and mental health costs.”

After fundraising for airfare and travel costs, Ms Dodds hopes to deliver human stories of climate change to leaders meeting in Egypt.

“We focus very much on bringing the peril and suffering of people either impacted or threatened by bushfires to the tables of those with the power to make us safer,” she said.

Climate activist and Tathra resident Jo Dodds, left, in Egypt for the COP27 climate conference. Picture: Supplied.

“We find the best, most impactful way to do this is not by quoting the science or posing the economic arguments, but by telling our very personal stories about bushfire.

“I’m meeting with various Australian ministers and key advisors to tell our stories and speak about our hopes and fears for a future, but often it’s those incidental conversations with the people you meet on the bus, or in the queue for sandwiches, that are the most informative and result in some important ongoing collaborations.”

Since arriving in Egypt, Ms Dodds said she had been excited to be amongst scientists, politicians, and activists who shared ideas.

“When you move around the pavilions and plenaries, you can hear a hundred panels a day sharing ideas, advice, inspiration and warnings about the problems of climate damage,” she said.

“Just standing in the queue for awesome Australian coffee at the Oz Pavilion, you can meet world experts, world leaders, and extraordinary people driving ambitious action for a safer future.

“There’s dozens of languages being spoken, people in traditional dress, suits, high fashion and activist garb.

“All of them are here to share and to work on their piece of the climate justice and renewable energy transition issues.”

With small beginnings as a band of hardy community members, the Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action group has come a long way to present its case for a climate emergency in Egypt, riding the coattails of landmark win in 2021 in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

Founded less than a year before the Black Summer bushfires, the group grew out of fear of the destruction wrought by the 2018 Tathra and District Bushfire. Beginning in March 2018, the blaze destroyed 65 houses, damaged another 29, and levelled 70 caravan homes and cabins.

View of homes and burnt out properties on Ocean View Terrace in Tathra, NSW, that was ravaged by a bushfire on 18 March 2018. Picture: Sean Davey

For Tathra locals, Ms Dodds said the fire was as devastating as it was eye-opening.

“I couldn’t count the number of friends who lost everything,” she said.

“Family photos, treasured mementoes, identification documents and records, historical items from ancestors.

“But, we also lost our peace of mind because we realised immediately that this was not a ‘normal’ fire.

“This was a climate-damage-driven fire, and we would be seeing more of them with escalating severity.”

In the years since, Ms Dodds has led the charge in raising awareness among the international community about the threat of climate change.

She said she was heartened to see growing recognition in Australia of it being the “biggest threat” to current and future generations.

But, after travelling to Egypt, she firmly believed more needed to be done.

Ms Dodds’ said organisers in Egypt were focusing for the first time on loss and damage.

For many African nations, Ms Dodds said food insecurity and environmental dangers ranked highly.

“That means Australia has both a huge responsibility as one of the highest emitters, per capita and as a continent with the most available renewable resources, the best opportunity to lead the world in developing a truly renewable energy future,” she said.

“If we seize these opportunities, it’s a win-win for us all.

“We’ll keep going, no matter what or who gets in the way, because although we may be a small organisation, we are fierce, and we are deeply hopeful about the future.”

COP27 will run until November 18.