The debate over Australia’s climate legislation is heating up this week after a push to change the national environment law suffered a huge blow, despite broad public support for climate change to be considered under the legislation.
On Wednesday evening, a Senate committee handed down its final report rejecting the Greens’ “Climate Trigger” bill, which seeks to make climate change impacts a consideration under environment law.
The Greens bill quickly followed the Albanese government’s new climate change laws in 2022 that mandated a 43% greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2030, but it was deferred to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee.
The bill received supportive submissions from environmental organisations, community groups and researchers. However, the Business Council of Australia, the National Farmers’ Federation and the Minerals Council of Australia all spoke in opposition and cautioned against a “piecemeal approach” to legislative reform.
The committee report commended the “objectives and intention” of the Greens bill and acknowledged the “significant and profound impact of climate change on the environment”. It ultimately recommended the bill should be rejected though, stating that the proposal could risk duplicating some of the outcomes already underway due to recent reforms to the safeguard mechanism, which will result in emissions reductions for both existing and new industrial facilities.
However, Wednesday also saw the publication of national poll results commissioned by the Climate Council, which showed that 73% of Australians believe the national environmental laws should be designed to protect from the impacts of climate change. It also found that this support surges to 83% among Labor voters.
In a dissenting report, the Greens stated that it is “entirely unacceptable that our national environment laws do not act upon the impact of greenhouse gases and global warming on our ecosystems and species”. It also said that, while the safeguard mechanism is one measure to address the threat of climate change, it does not “consider the impact of fossil fuels and global warming on our natural environment”.
The Senate committee and Climate Council reports were also published on the same day that the European Union’s climate change service, Copernicus, announced that globally January 2024 was the warmest January on record — and that the 1.5 degree limit, as set out by the Paris Agreement, has been exceeded for close to 50% of days from February 2023 to January 2024. For the first time, two days in November were also more than 2 degrees warmer.
The Greens bill is part of a broader push to amend Australia’s national environment law, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC), which does not directly mention climate change and doesn’t legally bind the federal environment minister to consider the climate impact of fossil fuel projects.
There has been acknowledgement from researchers, conservation groups and government that the EPBC is not fit for purpose, with a 2021 independent review calling the legislation “ineffective” and stating that it could not stand up to future challenges, such as climate change.
While the government has committed to several significant reforms under its Nature Positive Plan, including the establishment of a national environmental protection agency, it has not committed to amending the EPBC to forefront issues of climate change.
In a statement released following the report, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young asserted that the Greens bill closes a “loophole” in the EPBC and encouraged Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to pass it.
“Labor face a huge test this year — will they fix our broken environment law to stop new coal, gas and native forest logging projects or not?”
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie noted that the statistics were proof that “Australians get it” and that national environmental law “should protect our precious natural places from climate change, as one of the biggest threats they face”.
However, in a statement provided to Crikey, Plibersek asserted that the Albanese government has already changed the law to “deliver our strong new safeguard laws to get Australia to net zero emissions” and that the current laws “allow the minister for climate change and energy to stop coal and gas projects adding to Australia’s emissions”.
The government has not yet formally responded to the Senate report.
The National Farmers’ Federation seem content to preside over the bonfire of Australian agriculture as summer days over 40 degrees become the norm in parts of the outback.
Big agribusiness own the Farmers Federation. . They dont care if we all go to hell and whenever we do, we will foot the bill just like we did globally for Wall St and every other disaster the “Masters of Money”( as Noam Chomsky calls them) creates.
It is clear that the ALP is beholden to groups who do not want appropriate climate action.
Like unions and companies involved in mining and selling coal.
Plibersek’s response that the government already has the ability to stop projects based on carbon emissions is duplicitous and proves the point. If they were committed to stopping new projects that had intensive carbon emissions, they wouldn’t have any qualms supporting this legislation.
If they were committed to stopping new projects that have intensive carbon emissions, they wouldn’t be approving new projects that have intensive carbon emissions.
There is no doubt that Australia is better off environmentally right now than we would have been if the Liberals were returned at the last election, and I think it was worth giving Labor a shot, but they are clearly incapable of delivering sufficient change to avert the climate emergency. We clearly need to go further green, whether that means the Greens themselves or other environmentally-focussed parties.
At the same time, the Liberals and Nats, and other right-wing loon parties, need to go altogether. If people need to vote conservative, vote Teal.
Yeah, but you just watch the Alternative Liberal Party side with the Lying Nasty Party when the Greens get the supposed balance of power.
Oh no! Doncha know it’s only the Greens who side with the LibNats against the saintly ALP? /s
How do you pass legislation that undermines the profit outcomes for your major donators?
With the 3 major privately owned media outlets acting as the public relations arm, while lobby groups (like the business council)for polluters given far more favourable treatment with editors.
Misinformation is gladly reported simply because it is what was said, science and it’s evidence based information is not required because it is deemed antiprofit.
If there actually was the will to govern in the national interest, three years is long enough to bite the hand that feeds, and then throw a handcuff on it, while deplatforming the filth in the name of media diversity, and mounting a widespread education campaign on the merits of actual governance.
It’s the GOVERNMENT. It can be rather powerful if it wants.
A government of career politicians all considering their post-political careers. Where’s the furor over the broken promise to reform political donations and the reporting of them? Representational politics has failed, but is more likely to be deposed by rioting mobs than citizen assemblies.
The amount of misinformation concerning EV’s is staggering and is being believed by many of the general public. Collapsed car parks and bridges, houses burned down, fires and explosions everywhere, batteries stuffed after 3 years and on and on.I even heard Walid Ali on national radio say there was doubt on EV’s being greener than combustion vehicles.Science and facts are running a distant second and third to really poor journalism and outright fabrication.
The capitalist vision of consumption dictates that replacement parts , retro fitting existing cars and generally making things last is not as profitable as planned obsolescence.
It is extremely difficult to match petrol as stored energy.
Internal combustion engines need a cleaner fuel but hydrogen can change into 50 different compositions in a split second, boy is it volatile.
The danger of batteries is grossly exagerrated I think, and they do have a great future, service stations should partly convert to sli slo, slide in slide out batteries that suit all cars, solar charging is proven excellent technology but still young It needs to be (at least part)nationalised. It roughly can cost 12$ to charge a car in vic for a 200 km range roughly, a 15year old 2litre diesel can beat that pretty easily. Although old cars are heavy alternate clean fuel and retro fitting electric is a better economic model I think and deserves funding.
Not “could”; “will”.
This country is well and truly under the heels of the fossil fuel and agribusiness industries and it seems that nothing can change that.
Destroying both the major parties at the next election might
Indeed. I’ll be leaving both the Lying Nasty Party and the Alternative Liberal Party off my ballot altogether, and encourage all to do the same.
If the Labor party do not enact the will of the people who vote for them they will encourage many to transfer to the greens. Then they will come under pressure to have a formal coalition, which may not be a bad idea as things deteriorate climaticly.