Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Whish-Wilson, I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The urgent need for the Morrison Government to announce science-based 2030 targets, to protect Australian exporters from overseas carbon border adjustment mechanisms.

In the last few weeks and months, everything about the global fight on the climate emergency has changed: 2030 targets, net zero commitments, coal and gas exports and now carbon tariffs. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week that he wants to use June's G7 meeting to forge an alliance on carbon border adjustment mechanisms. While this government is trying to secure a free trade agreement with the European Union, the EU ambassador has urged us to embrace 'more ambitious and emboldened' climate policies. Japan, a country that accepts 40 per cent of Australia's LNG exports and over a third of our thermal coal exports, is set to make a decision by July on its own carbon border adjustment mechanism. In the platform that he took to the 2020 election, US President Biden said that his administration will 'impose carbon adjustment fees or quotas on carbon-intensive goods from countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations' and 'will also condition future trade agreements on partners' commitments to meet their enhanced Paris climate targets'.

We already know that this government has turned Australia into a global pariah when it comes to climate action and that we face the scorn of the international community when it comes to doing our fair share to reduce emissions. Prime Minister Morrison was refused an invitation to the UN Climate Ambition Summit late last year. The former Prime Minister of Tuvalu has said that the Prime Minister's actions at the 2019 Pacific Islands Forum communicated the view that Pacific leaders should 'take the money then shut up about climate change'. This government has spent the last two meetings of the Paris Agreement begging the rest of the world to let Australia cheat on our emissions accounting by using Kyoto-era carryover credits, something that no other country is intending to use.

But now it looks like Australia's exporters will have to wear the consequences of this government's go-slow approach as well. We don't know how far the consequences could go. Maybe there'll be tariffs based on the carbon intensity of our goods, and all of the exporters who rely on our dirty coal based electricity, which this government refuses to transition off, will get whacked with a big fee. Maybe the tariffs will be general and impact all exporters, which could see even low-carbon exporters hit with tariffs due to this government's inaction. We don't know yet and, given the nature of these global trade agreements, there is every chance that we won't have much of a say.

What's so sad about this is that it doesn't need to be this way. We had a price on carbon, and it worked. We brought down energy emissions by 12 million tonnes in just the two years before it was repealed, the only time prior to COVID that that's happened in this country. We are blessed with the resources of the sun and the wind. We have the engineering and technical know-how to rapidly transform our economy. But politics—the politics of the big parties and the big coal and gas corporations who pay for their campaigns—continues to get in the way.

We have two options available to us: we can continue to double-down on our fossil fuel obsession while the rest of the world leaves Australia behind, or we can do our fair share to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adopt science based 2030 targets and make a proper plan to meet them. There are no other options.

You hear from the government that somehow we can close our eyes and wish it all away. Minister Taylor has said that he's dead against carbon tariffs. I'm sorry, minister, but that's not how it works. You can be dead against them all you like, but, if we want to be part of the global community, we can't just unilaterally decide to shirk our responsibility on emissions. That's the choice—a job-rich transformation to a low-carbon economy or a poorer, hotter, more dangerous and more insular Australia.

This government faces a series of very serious threats over the coming months: President Biden's April climate summit, the G7 meeting in June, the 2021 Pacific Islands Forum and, finally, COP26 in Glasgow in November. And, while talk of 'preferably by 2050' might be a balm for those who want to delay action, it is what we do and say over the next decade that counts. It is science based 2030 targets and the next decade that will be debated at the Biden summit, at the G7 and at COP26. The decisions that this government makes over the coming months will set the course for not only the future of the fight on climate change but the future of Australia's role in the world. The eyes of the world are on us, and, if this government fails again, there will be consequences.