Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Yesterday's report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was described as a code red for humanity by none other than the UN Secretary-General. He said:

The alarm bells are deafening … greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.

I learnt about the science of the greenhouse effect as a young student of climate science 40 years ago. It was a shocking truth that set me on my path to become a campaigner for the wellbeing of life on this planet and to being here in this place.

The first IPCC report came out in 1990, a lifetime ago for my two adult kids. They, like all young people, have lived their lives with the knowledge of the climate crisis hanging like a noose around their futures. Yet our government are still looking after their billionaire mates and their fossil fuel donors while our future is literally going up in flames. We have to kick them out.

The Labor Party? They too are looking after their fossil fuel mates and donors. Hand in hand with the government, they're hell-bent on unleashing a huge carbon bomb on the planet, with more coalmines and by fracking vast tracts of the sovereign lands First Nations peoples. They're silent about what needs to happen by 2030, when we have to have slashed our pollution. Delay is the new denialism.

But have hope, people! We can kick this destructive, planet-burning mob out of power. We can elect a new government, with the Greens in balance of power, that will commit Australia to science based targets for 2030. It will commit to getting out of mining coal, gas and oil so we can play our part in giving humanity, and all life on this planet, the chance of a healthy future.