We all deserve certainty to plan for the future.
Down the road in Biloela, locals have been told that the government-owned Callide B coal-fired power station will close by 2028 and workers have been given job guarantees.
We’re yet to secure the same for Gladstone. The Gladstone coal-fired power station has no publicly confirmed closure date and workers have no job guarantees.
Let's band together and ask Rio Tinto, a major stakeholder in the power station, to step up and support our community. Rio Tinto can provide all of us with the certainty we need to plan for a brighter future for our climate and our workers.
ACF will hand-deliver the open letter in the next few months, so every signature counts. Add yours now.
Open letter:
“To Rio Tinto, We as community members of Gladstone, call on you to please advise workers and the Gladstone community of your plans for the future of Gladstone Power Station, including any plans for the power station to downsize or close its operations and any plans to guarantee jobs and training for workers. We all deserve certainty, so we can plan for a brighter future. We look forward to you providing our community with more certainty soon.”
While the Queensland Government has vowed to end coal in our state by 2035, Rio Tinto is working to a tighter deadline. The company needs to urgently reduce the climate pollution it’s pumping into the atmosphere and has set a target to halve all its emissions by 2030.
The Gladstone Power Station is one of Rio’s most polluting assets, so it’s highly likely that the power station will downsize or close this decade.
Just last month, Rio announced a deal to buy all electricity from Australia’s biggest solar farm to help repower its three Gladstone assets – the Boyne aluminium smelter, the Yarwun alumina refinery and the Queensland alumina refinery.
We need climate action now. We’ve all witnessed climate-fuelled cyclones and storms devastating North Queensland this summer, with people displaced and thousands of animals washed up dead on beaches.
But we need to look after workers, too. Here in Gladstone, workers and their families deserve transparency now about the power station’s future.
Let's band together and ask Rio Tinto’s Gladstone branch for the certainty we need to plan for a brighter future for our climate and our workers.
Sign the open letter.
