Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

According to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the era of global warming has ended and the era of global boiling has arrived. He went on to say:

The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses, no more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that.

Whether you believe in the science or not, the reality is July was the hottest month in recorded history around the globe. Sea levels are rising, the Arctic is melting, coral reefs are dying, oceans are acidifying and forests are burning. At this stage, I don't think any of us should be arguing anymore as to what may be behind this climactic change; instead we should be focused on the reality that business as usual is not going to be enough for our planet.

We are no longer facing a climate emergency; we are living a climate emergency. Just a year ago, the people of North Sydney sent me to Canberra with a very clear priority: to argue incessantly for faster, tangible and more ambitious action on climate change, because the people living in my electorate know we must do all we can to restore and repair the environment within which we live whilst also avoiding further damage. Yet, at the same time as greenhouse gas pollution has driven global temperatures to unprecedented highs, this government has approved three new coal and gas projects in Australia. Today we are standing here and debating a piece of legislation that professes to be about environmental protection while in truth it is actually about providing an opportunity for ongoing pollution to be masked by hiding it under our seabeds.

We talk about reaching 2030 and 2050 climate targets, we talk about the road towards net zero, meeting our international obligations and embarking on major environmental law reforms. But talk is cheap, and, as Antonio Guterres says, leaders must lead. As leaders, then, and on behalf of the communities that have sent us, we need to prioritise real action. In this context, being presented with this bill at this point in time is incredibly disappointing.

Looking at the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023, we need to be clear about what problem this piece of legislation is trying to solve. Having asked myself that question and having looked to others for guidance and thinking long and hard about it, it concerns me no end that the only problem I see this legislation addressing is the fossil fuel sector's need to find ways to enable it to continue to do more of the same. In its current form, this legislation does nothing in terms of lowering our overall carbon emissions. Rather, it enables those who already create the largest burdens to continue to add to them. Net zero is not carbon emission reduction. Carbon neutral is not carbon clean. In that context, this place must recognise that while this piece of legislation may need be expedited for commercial reasons associated with the ongoing operations of the fossil fuel sector it does not present the environmental protection or the urgent climate response we need to see.

My electorate in North Sydney is despairing that this government continues to show a complete lack of ambition and leadership when it comes to moving our economy and nation forward into a brave and dependable future. But still we show up; we speak up. On my community's behalf, I'm here today to say that we cannot continue to create emissions simply because we have options to dump them. We must instead focus on driving down greenhouse gas emissions, not cleaning up the mess once it's made. Ultimately, I would say that this piece of legislation is trying to solve the wrong problem. My response to this bill will therefore be viewed through that lens.

With Australia's natural environment in a state of serious decline and an increasing threat from human activity, this bill is being pushed to give effect to Australia's obligations under the London protocol. The London protocol is one of the first global conventions to protect the marine environment from human activities, with the objective to promote the effective control of all sources of marine pollution. Ultimately, the protocol was about protecting and preserving our marine environment, and the irony of it now being used to enable sea dumping of carbon emissions is not lost on me.

This bill proposes to establish a framework for regulating the export of carbon dioxide streams for carbon capture and storage and for marine geoengineering activities, respectively. Both technologies may fall within the broad scope of the London protocol, but, arguably, they were meant to be curtailed by it, not enabled. Ultimately, these technologies present risks that are incompatible with marine environment protection. In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change observed the risk of leaks from undersea or underground CO2 storage. This bill, then, is not an environmental protection bill; it's a profit mechanism. And it should be called just that.

The risks associated with geoengineering, specifically ocean fertilisation, are also well known. The 2013 amendment to the London protocol was proposed by Australia on the premise that it should occur only for legitimate scientific research purposes and should otherwise be prohibited. During discussions on the amendment, the Australian government at the time actually said:

The potential impacts of ocean fertilisation could be severe and may include ocean acidification, harmful algal blooms, oxygen depletion in deep waters, or other unwanted ecosystem changes and human health consequences.

How then can a piece of environmental legislation possibly allow for solutions which bring with them this level of risk for environmental damage and enable continued carbon pollution? A report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water earlier this year said Australia supported the ratification of the London protocol amendments as 'a means for countries to respond to the real urgency of climate change'. As an advocate who is passionate about responding to the real urgency of climate change, I highlight a section in a report that also says:

… while CCS is one of a suite of options available for reducing CO2 emissions, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, it is not a substitute for the decarbonisation of the global economy.

The only place for carbon capture and storage is in reducing emissions from genuinely hard-to-abate sectors, such as cement and steel, where there are no other viable solutions.

Rapid decarbonisation of the global economy must be a driving force of reform if we are serious about saving our planet from irreversible climate change. So I question why, when so much vital environmental reform has been promised, we are prioritising this piece of legislation. It should not be coming ahead of the long-awaited reforms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. As I stated earlier, as I explore why it so urgently needs to proceed, I can find only economic and contractual negotiations between commercial parties as a trigger for prioritising this legislation. The IPCC has clearly noted that carbon capture and storage presents the risk of locking in existing energy structures—that is, the continued extraction of fossil fuels.

This bill is investing in the continued production of fossil fuels, rather than rapidly phasing out our reliance on them.

Looking closer at examples of how carbon dioxide streams could be exported under this bill, I was led to the Bayu-Undan gas field. This is a project which Santos plans to repurpose for carbon capture and storage and which traverses the marine boundaries of Australia and Timor-Leste. But in whose best interest is this project? There's no way that it's serving the purpose of protecting our marine environment, nor mitigating the impacts of climate change. Indeed, Santos managing director and CEO Kevin Gallagher has said:

CCS at Bayu-Undan has potential capacity to safely and permanently store approximately 10 million tonnes per annum of CO2 and could build a new job-creating and revenue-generating industry for Timor-Leste.

How fortunate for Santos that they have the space to store the excessive emissions produced by their gas projects! This is 10 million tonnes per annum too much for our environment.

It says something quite concerning that the fossil fuel industry is largely supportive of this bill, while environment and energy non-government organisations are strongly opposed to it and consider carbon capture and storage an unproven technology designed to extend the life of the fossil fuel industry. In the words of the Wilderness Society:

Urgent environmental matters lay dormant while the needs of the fossil fuel industry leap ahead of the queue.

At the very least, this bill must be accompanied by a guarantee that these changes will not be used for the ongoing use of fossil fuels, nor to facilitate the expansion of gas developments such as Santos's Barossa offshore project. It must also provide a guarantee of greater transparency over permit applications and public consultation.

Numerous submissions to the Senate inquiry expressed concern that the bill does not contain a requirement for an environmental impact assessment of the proposed activities. As it stands, the bill has no requirement for public consultation in relation to the permit applications, notification of interest holders nor any associated requirement from the minister to have regard to comments received from the public or interest holders. It is deeply concerning that so much power is being given to the minister without these checks and balances in place.

The successful adoption of carbon capture and storage in Denmark for genuinely hard to abate sectors has been accompanied by transparent processes. A robust stakeholder consultation platform with representatives of the EU institutions, EU and third countries, NGOs, business leaders and academia has facilitated the deployment of the technologies. Without amendment, it is far from convincing that this bill presents a solution that is in the best interests of our climate and environment. It is not the appropriate investment to make in the face of our current climate emergency.

As stated by Secretary-General Guterres, it is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels and to avoid the very worst of climate change, but only with dramatic and immediate climate action. This bill does not present us with dramatic, immediate climate action. Carbon capture and storage has been around for decades and has consistently failed to meet expectations. So where is the science of this bill coming from? Climate science is currently telling us there are far more urgent solutions that Australia should be prioritising investment in.

While the government is saying carbon capture and storage will play a role in the transition to clean energy, I argue that this legislation will slow that transition down. North Sydney believes that the policy needs to be accelerating the transition to renewable sources of energy, getting all of our electricity from renewable generation. There is no future for gas for the country or households, and there's nothing freer and more abundant than sun, wind and hydro opportunities in this country. The undeniable truth is that renewable energy solutions are becoming cheaper and more reliable and efficient every day, while our current continued reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable and harmful to the planet. We must change the way we produce energy rather than continuing to invest in technology that encourages a reliance on fossil fuel, and this requires other solutions.

The government claims this bill is crucial for supporting our regional partners' net zero goals. I put forward a statement from Professor Samantha Hepburn which questions, 'If offshore carbon capture and storage has not worked effectively in Australian waters, it's unclear how these other countries will acquire the capacity and knowledge to achieve successful carbon storage when wealthy fossil fuel companies operating in Australia could not.'

The government continue to tell us that they are committed to making positive climate policy a priority, yet, rather than tackling the real elephant in the room—that is, the rate at which our nation is continuing to contribute to global greenhouse gases—it has tried to draw our attention away and towards solutions that ultimately enable those that pollute to continue to do so. Carbon capture and storage is not new technology, and it is largely unproven. It is not the right investment.

This is not what dramatic, immediate climate action looks like and therefore it is not what Australia or our region needs right now. The premise that this legislation is for the purpose of climate action is a stretch, and the place of this bill on the road to net zero is questionable.

I conclude by repeating these words from Secretary-General Guterres:

The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable.

Leaders must lead.

No more hesitancy. No more excuses. No more waiting for others to move first.

There is simply no more time for that.

We need the Australian government to look up—look up at the potential to move our country forward, look up at the need to protect Australian citizens right across this country, and look up so that we can step into the role we need to play as responsible international citizens.

See this speech in context