Ballina councillor Jeff Johnson and Lismore councillor Simon Clough will be amongst a group of North Coast residents packing their canoes and taking part in a blockade of the world’s biggest coal port at Newcastle this weekend.

The protest has been organised by the Newcastle-based climate action group Rising Tide and aims to raise awareness of Australia’s expanding coal industry in the lead up to the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen later this year.

“Coal exports are not just Australia’s biggest greenhouse impact, but our fastest growing, with coal ports in NSW and Queensland all undergoing rapid expansions. Here in Newcastle, the world’s biggest coal port, developments now under construction will see coal exports double. Other plans in the pipeline will see them triple,” a Rising Tide spokesperson said on their website.

Cr Clough said he was prepared to get arrested as he and thousands of other people tried to stop any ships entering the port on Saturday.

“The protest is practical and symbolic. We’re trying to get the Australian public focused on this issue,” he said. “The Rudd government’s inaction, setting a 5 per cent reduction in carbon emission levels, is laughable. The Australian government needs to take the threat very seriously, as do state and local governments because the security of our communities are at risk.”

Cr Clough said the world’s leading climate change scientists released the latest data at a three-day conference in Copenhagen recently and the news was grim. Instead of a sea level rise of between 18 and 59 centimetres by 2100, as forecast in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, it is now estimated seas could rise up to a metre.

“In relation to extreme weather events, like floods, bushfires and hailstorms, the impact on infrastructure as well as the threat to water and food, this is something that requires leadership from all level of government,” Cr Clough said. “When governments fail it’s up to the community to take the lead.”

Cr Clough said he thought the Rudd government’s planned emissions trading scheme (ETS) was “totally misconceived”.

“A carbon tax would be much more effective where you charge per kilo for the carbon you produce and it should be applied across the board,” he said. “For example, a household that uses 20 kilowatts of electricity pays for that through a carbon tax. If you put in solar power, or solar hot water and only use 10 kilowatts, then the tax is halved. Under the emissions trading scheme all that is irrelevant. You can make your house green as you like and all you are doing is giving the flexibility of the carbon credits to Country Energy.

“The ETS is extremely complex, but is essentially compensating the largest polluters in a very complex way. A carbon tax says ‘this is the carbon you are producing, therefore this is the tax you pay’.”

Cr Johnson agreed the proposed system was fundamentally flawed.

“The carbon pollution reduction scheme (the official name for Australia’s ETS) gives $4 billion in compensation to the big polluters... I feel strongly this money should be spent on the green economy, investing in renewable energy and expanding the electricity grid to geothermal hot spots. This is proven technology, yet they’re still obsessed with propping up the coal industry.”