Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Rice, I move

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

The mining and burning of coal, oil and gas is the primary cause of global heating and is causing more frequent and more intense floods, heatwaves, fires; and that to protect lives and livelihoods, no new coal, oil and gas projects should be started in Australia.

Don't take my word for this. This is what the science tells us. This is what the IPCC—the panel of climate change experts which comprises a couple of hundred of the world's most eminent climate scientists—tells us. It tells us that, on our current trajectory with our current 'business as usual' scenarios, this planet is on a three- to four-degree warming trajectory this century. Entire parts of our earth—our home—will be uninhabitable at a three- to four-degree warming scenario, not just because of drought, a lack of rainfall, pests and diseases but also because of extreme weather events. We think not only of the extreme weather events like the bushfires this country witnessed just two years ago or the unprecedented floods we've seen on the eastern seaboard in recent weeks but also of the unprecedented heatwaves we are seeing in the ocean that are destroying our beautiful and globally significant coral reefs, our seagrass beds right around the country and our giant kelp forests. These changes in the ocean have profound impacts on Australian communities right around this country. We think of the farming community and their livelihoods; we all rely on the food that they grow. No-one is more vulnerable than they are as an industry to our changing climate and to global warming.

The sole thing we can do—which is also the most important thing we can do to reduce our emissions targets and our 2030 emissions targets in particular—is to stop all new oil and gas production and all new fossil fuel production in this country. But, once again, don't take my word for that. Listen to the International Energy Agency, which said that 2021 was the year that we needed to leave all new fossil fuels in the ground and transition as rapidly as possible to 100 per cent renewables. But what do we do? What do we get from this government? Just today we found that Mr Angus Taylor, the so-called minister for emissions reduction, is bringing before the parliament regulations to give more public money to a fossil fuel project. They've given hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for fossil fuel projects at a time when we know we've got to be transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Every time I talk to people about climate change and every time this issue is raised with me as a senator—and whether it's by Greens supporters, Labor supporters or Liberal supporters doesn't matter—I highlight to every person I speak to the simple fact that climate change is not first and foremost an environmental problem, nor is it an economic problem, even though it's caused by unregulated externalities from business activities. It is first and foremost a political problem. Only politics can solve this. People can change their behaviour, and that makes a difference, but it is a systemic issue that this parliament can help to solve.

We have more reasons than most to show global leadership in taking the climate action necessary to limit emissions and warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. But what do we do? We do the exact opposite. We are a global embarrassment. We have been called out by the UN, by UNESCO and by countries all around the world—including our friends and allies, like the United States—as being a global embarrassment on climate change. We are not only a laggard; we are also deliberately undermining climate action because of the politics of climate change in this place. The Labor and Liberal parties are captured by fossil fuel interests. That's the problem. Until we clean up politics, we'll never fix it. This issue has to be first and foremost in the minds of Australians when they go into their polling booths. They need to vote for climate action. They need to vote Greens.