Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2020—the Greens' bill that looks to introduce a climate trigger impact assessment into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, otherwise known as the EPBC Act. Now is the time for action. The world's leading climate scientists have told us we have a little over 10 years to cut our emissions in half. We have to get on with the job. Instead, of course, what we're seeing is emissions continuing to rise rapidly. We need a rapid transition to renewable energy. Australia's emissions keep going up and we've got to do everything we can to get them to come down. This bill is about trying to make sure things don't get worse. We have got a lot of work to do to reach the levels that the scientists are advising to reduce our pollution. The last thing we should be doing is making that job harder. That's what this bill strives to address.

We have a government that is effectively asleep at the wheel. When the country burns—as it has over this summer—when thousands of properties are lost, dozens of people are killed and over a billion animals die, and when economists estimate that the cost to the Australian economy of this summer's bushfires could reach as high as $1 billion, this government needs to stop acting as it is. We need to ensure that we reduce carbon pollution and that we have a plan to address climate change.

The cost of Australia's climate fires over this summer is over 250 million tonnes of CO2. That is a conservative estimate of what is being released into the atmosphere. We know the job to reduce climate change is already getting harder, day by day. We have a government with its head in the sand, asleep at the wheel, insisting that technology, not real reform, is going to be enough. We need to put in place the rules, the laws and the plans that are going to ensure that we have a safe climate for our children's future. The current government response is simply not good enough.

Our climate is on the brink of collapse as we continue to mine and burn coal, oil and gas. Our ecosystem is crumbling. You can see that with the results of the environmental devastation that has happened just here in Australia over the last couple of months. Our precious native flora and fauna are rapidly becoming extinct. Our waterways, rivers and streams are becoming contaminated and dry. Yet we are somehow supposed to trust that this government has everything in hand, that it has the climate crisis under control. Well, it simply does not.

We're somehow supposed to trust that this government will lead us on the world stage to meet our 2030 emissions reduction targets at a canter. Yet, of course, we know that this is done with cooking the books and trickery. The rest of the world have watched Australia burn this summer, knowing that we are at the forefront of the biggest threat that humanity has ever faced. They have seen the result of climate change with the climate fires that continued over summer. They, too, want the world to act, and they want Australia to participate in that. No-one trusts that this government is going to do it without a dramatic change of direction.

We have a government that is beholden to the coal industry and the fossil fuel lobby. We have an opposition party that is paralysed by inaction. Yes, we have an opposition party that has in the last few days announced a 2050 target, but it has no plan as to how to get there. We need action now, not into the distant future. Not only are we seeing Australia's total emissions steadily climb; so too are we seeing increasing amounts of political donations to the corrupted majors from the fossil fuel lobby. In 2018-19 alone, fossil fuel donations to the Liberal, Labor and National parties amounted to more than $1.8 million. If you want to know what's holding back climate action in this country, that is the reason. This was up 48 per cent from $1.3 million the year before, and, given Australia's track record of deliberately opaque, woefully inadequate political donation disclosure, the true figure is estimated to be at least five to 10 times higher. Here's a headline we should all be seeing: 'Australia's major political parties—proudly brought to you by the fossil fuel industry'. That's currently what is holding back our climate action.

We have to get real about the plans in place to reduce carbon pollution, to confront climate change and to ensure that we create a safe climate for our children's future. No other party but the Greens will call out the government in this manner and hold them to account. No other party but the Greens will keep fighting for real action on climate change. But we need to work cooperatively in this place if we are to deal with this most pressing threat to humanity—this most pressing threat to the health and survival of our planet. There are some simple things that need to be done to ensure we can take those steps needed to address the crisis that the scientists and the experts are warning of. Years ago, Ross Garnaut, when he wrote his report to this place about the threats of climate change, warned that bushfires, droughts and extreme weather would have a huge economic impact on our country, and that, today, is exactly what we are seeing. That is what we need to confront, and we need some steps to get there. This climate trigger bill is one way to ensure that we can stop making climate change worse.

Our environmental laws have simply not kept up with environmental reality. Right now we are in an extinction crisis. We have 517 animals, 87 distinct ecological communities and over 1,300 unique plant species listed as nationally threatened. That's Australia's environment—threatened, at risk of extinction. These numbers are all trending in the wrong direction, and this summer's climate fires have made that situation even worse. Globally, the UN tells us, there are a million species under threat of extinction and, to add pressure to the scale and impact the fires have had on these vulnerable species, we are running out of time more than ever. It is simply not good enough to think that this climate emergency and extinction crisis is something that is out of sight, out of mind. It is not. It is happening right here right now, and we have to make sure, as political representatives and as the community's voices in the parliament, that we stand up and do something. This is happening not in the distant future and not in some far off land; it is happening right here in our backyard. That is why we've introduced this climate trigger bill. The central point of this piece of legislation is to ensure that major projects—mining, oil and gas drilling, large-scale land-clearing projects—are assessed for their impact on climate change. How much worse will they make the climate crisis? How much pollution will these projects emit? How much pollution are these projects going to put into the atmosphere, making it harder for us to deal with the climate emergency we all know we are facing?

I think many members of the community would be shocked to know that, despite having environmental laws at the federal level—national laws that are meant to protect our environment—by which projects are meant to be assessed, we have no assessment as to what impact a project, an operation or a new mine will have in relation to climate change. When you put forward an application to set up or open a new mine, whether that be in Queensland, South Australia or anywhere else, you should have to make sure you know how much worse your project is going to make climate change. At the moment, that assessment is simply not done. The Adani coal mine can get a tick of environmental approval without having any assessment in relation to the impact that a massive, big coal mine will have on the climate. Of course, that's crazy. We all know that digging up more fossil fuel—digging up more coal, shipping it off overseas and burning it, or sinking an oil well in the Great Australian Bight—is going to have a huge impact on climate change. When we're all working so hard and there is a desire to reduce pollution and to get global temperature rise capped at 1½ degrees, the last thing we need is more pollution being put into the atmosphere. The last thing we need is to make it harder and tougher for us to reduce our pollution.

This climate trigger bill is a simple, reasonable, logical step. If we are to reach net zero emissions, then we have to stop making the situation worse. We have to stop taking two steps forward and one step back. Yes, we need to transition out of the fossil fuel industry into clean, green renewable energy. Yes, we've got to become more energy efficient and use the technology advancement to our best to ensure that we can transition the whole economy. It becomes harder and harder to do that the more new mines, new oil drilling projects and new massive land-clearing operations occur. They're going to make it more difficult to reduce our carbon pollution into the future.

Our environment laws should simply assess projects on how much impact they have on the environment, and that has to include the impact on our climate. We know that climate change is the biggest threat to health and safety and to the protection of Australia and the world's environment. It is an impact and a threat to our economy, and it's an impact and a threat to our health. We saw children over the summer wearing face masks to try and keep healthy from that terrible hazy smoke just here in Canberra. We saw children in Sydney going to the playground wearing face masks. That is the type of future we are looking at if we don't arrest dangerous global warming fast.

There's been a lot of debate already in this place and outside this place over the last few days as to what targets we should have. Well, we need to start now by reducing carbon pollution, and not just in 2050. We have to start doing the hard work now, and one of the simple things we could do is to stop making the situation worse. We've got a lot of cleaning up to do. We shouldn't be creating more mess as we try and deal with it.

We know that climate change is having a huge impact on some of the most precious parts of Australia's environment. I think about what happened to my home state of South Australia over the summer. I think about the fact that a third of the vineyards in the Adelaide Hills have been wiped out because of these climate fires. The economic impact of that on my state is going to continue for a long time. Here in the Canberra region, only last week, wineries declared that there would be no vintage this season because of the smoke tainted grapes in the Canberra wine area. That's less jobs. That's less money. That's less services in our community. When I think about the environmental devastation of these fires, I think about the fact that 80 per cent of the Blue Mountains world heritage area was devastated by fire. I think about the tragic impact of wiping out half of Kangaroo Island on our beautiful environment there and the precious animals that call that place home. Over half of the koalas on Kangaroo Island perished in the fires. Our tourism industry is on its knees. Our environment is in collapse, and this bill would at least be one step forward in the plan to address climate change. So I appeal to the opposition and the government: if you're serious about getting the targets right, let's stop making things worse and put in place proper assessment for these projects into the future. (Time expired)