The December 5 by-elections in Bradfield and Higgins are the last elections in the developed world before the United Nations meets in Copenhagen to hammer out a global climate deal.

The first Bradfield by-election candidate interviewed is Susie Gemmell from the Australian Greens. While you watch the video, ask yourself: does Susie pass the Tomorrow Test?

We’ll ask all the candidates questions from the same five areas of the Test, but if you’ve got a burning question for our prospective MPs, tweet us @AYCC and let us know! We’ll do our best to pass your questions on to all the candidates before polling day.

We’ll be bringing you more interviews from both seats in the coming weeks.

In the two by-elections being held just days before the climate conference starts, every vote will make a difference – we know that the Australian political parties will be watching the results very closely for the effects of climate change on our voting preferences.

During the campaign, the AYCC will test every candidate on their knowledge of the climate crisis and their plans to halt it. We’ll be releasing an independent, impartial scorecard before polling day, ranking candidates on climate issues – the AYCC’s Tomorrow Test. So that we can mark them fairly, we’ll interview as many of the candidates as we can, and release the interviews on this blog every few days between now and the release of the scorecard. That way, everyone in these seats will be able to test the candidates themselves.