Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As climate change talks commence in Bonn, a report released on Monday shows that global carbon emissions have risen in 2017 by two per cent on 2016 levels. This means the world will belch 37 billion tonnes of CO2 this year alone. Let's reflect on that. We have seen an increase in global carbon emissions at a time when the science is telling us that we urgently need to reduce emissions.

On the Turnbull government's watch, since 2013, Australia's emissions have continued to increase. Since 2013—I say that again—our emissions have continued to go up and up and up. We are now facing the loss of the Great Barrier Reef. We are seeing global climate systems completely disrupted, record storms through the Atlantic and records broken through each year, and yet we see our emissions here in Australia continue to increase. Why has that occurred? It is because we have a government with no plan to cut pollution, no coherent climate policy and no coherent energy policy. This is a government totally captured by the fossil fuel interests of its big business donors. The government has ruled out a renewable energy target. It has ruled out a clean energy target, despite commissioning the Chief Scientist to conduct a comprehensive report on it. It has of course ruled out the most efficient mechanism by which to reduce emissions—that is, a comprehensive, economy-wide price on carbon pollution.

We now have the introduction of the farcical National Energy Guarantee, a policy designed to put a handbrake on renewables and to keep dirty coal-fired power stations open. In one of the most bizarre turns this year, we saw the Prime Minister instruct one of the big energy operators to keep a dirty, polluting coal-fired power station open, as the centrepiece of the government's climate policy. This coal-fired power station would be more at home in 1960s Russia than it is in a modern, 21st century economy. Sadly, the LNP is absolutely hell-bent on appeasing the coal lobby and, of course, on appeasing its own vocal right wing, led by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. It's prioritising its big corporate donations from the fossil fuel industry over a livable climate, over our precious places like the Great Barrier Reef. It seems its intention is to make sure that the dollars just keep rolling in and that vested interests are kept on side: 'We've got to have the money flowing, even if we lose the Great Barrier Reef, even if people are in climates and environments that are uninhabitable.' It seems that the dollars are much more important than our children's and our grandchildren's future.

We are seeing now in Bonn that Australia is trashing our international reputation. We are an international pariah right now, receiving a Fossil of the Day Award, following on from the prestigious awards that we were able to win at the previous climate talks and the ones before that. ANU Professor Frank Jotzo says that the possibility of achieving Australia's 2030 Paris climate target is now slipping away, slipping further from reach. This is a disgrace. The science is telling us in which direction we need to be moving, and we have a Liberal Party taking us in precisely the opposite direction. Our neighbours are so frustrated by Australia's behaviour that we had the leader of Tuvalu publicly declaring, 'Australia is stuck in the Dark Ages with its reliance on dirty fossil fuels.'

We are at crisis point. We have an opportunity to take our economy out of the 19th century and into the 21st century, with a solution that is good for jobs, good for prices and, most importantly of all, good for the environment. We Greens have a plan to do that. We've got a policy that sets out a plan to transition communities so that Australia can go from being the worst per capita polluter in the world to one of the best, least-polluting countries. We can do that by making sure that we produce at least 90 per cent of our energy from clean, renewable energy resources. We can do that by 2030. Of course, we need to stop the Carmichael Adani mine in its tracks if we are to have any chance of meeting the climate targets that we agreed to in Paris, if we are to have any chance of achieving that two-degree temperature reduction that the climate so desperately needs.

Queensland are about to head to the polls. They know the Greens are the party standing between them and the construction of the Adani coalmine. They know that we are the only party that have committed to ensuring that this mine does not get built—and that means no taxpayer funded handouts, regardless of whatever form they take. We were pleased to see, under pressure, the Queensland state government indicate they would refuse to support the NAIF loan, but this is the same party that has supported secret royalty deals to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That is taxpayer money going to support a project that will cook the planet. It is the Queensland Labor Party, of course with the support of the LNP opposition, that wants to give that Adani mine unlimited access to groundwater in the Great Artesian Basin. It is the same party that wants to continue to see that rail line being built, that port being built and the risk to the Great Barrier Reef as that coal is shipped through to go on to continue to fuel dangerous climate change.

Queenslanders now have a choice. In a few days time they have an opportunity to put in place three wonderful, outstanding representatives—Kirsten Lovejoy in McConnel, Amy MacMahon in South Brisbane and Michael Berkman in Maiwar—to send a very strong statement to whoever should form government in Queensland at the next election that the community does not want to see that Adani mine built. Today we learnt that the former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Minister Canavan have written to the Chinese government and said, 'If private financiers won't fund it, we want you to fund it.' It's another secret deal that we see this government entering into, with the Chinese government, begging for support for that coalmine. In a few short days the people of Queensland will have an opportunity to make such a strong statement about where their values stand. The only thing that stands between them and the Adani coalmine is the Australian Greens. Vote for Kirsten Lovejoy, Amy MacMahon and Michael Berkman and say to the next Queensland government, 'This cannot be built.' (Time expired)