Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) climate change is a significant threat to our economy, natural environment, farming communities and national security;

(b) Australia’s annual emissions have been rising in recent years;

(c) as a global problem, the solution to climate change requires concerted international cooperation to limit the production of greenhouse gases;

(d) as the only global agreement designed to address climate change, the Paris Accords must play a central role in addressing climate change;

(e)the Paris Accords require signatory countries to deliver actions consistent with keeping the global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius;

(f) based on the latest scientific advice, the world is currently on track for warming of above 3 degrees, and efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions need to be strengthened to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts; and

(g) as a result of the threat posed by climate change, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Portugal, Argentina and the Republic of Ireland have declared a climate emergency; and

(2) therefore, affirms that:

(a) Australia remains committed to delivering on its obligations under the Paris Accords;

(b) failing to meet the goals of the Paris Accords would have unprecedented and devastating environmental, economic, societal and health impacts for Australia; and

(c) the threat posed by climate change on the future prosperity and security of Australia and the globe constitutes a climate change emergency.

This motion responds to the calls from more than 370,000 Australians who have participated in the largest ever e-petition to this parliament, calling for this parliament to recognise climate change as an emergency. It also follows the example of the UK, Canadian, Irish and other parliaments, not to mention literally dozens and dozens of councils here in Australia and across the world, who have made a similar declaration. Since October last year, in just the past 12 months, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, the world's leading climate scientists, have issued three reports, each more urgent than the last. In essence, those reports tell us that the window is closing on our generation's ability to discharge our responsibilities set out in the Paris climate agreement—namely, to ensure that global warming is kept well below two degrees above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. Those reports, particularly the report issued 12 months ago by the world's leading climate scientists, tell us that substantial cuts in emissions are going to be necessary over the course of the 2020s if we are to have any reasonable hope of keeping to those important thresholds.

Earlier this month, here in Australia, the Australian Medical Association, the AMA, followed the lead of its British and American counterparts in also declaring that climate change is a health emergency, because we've received advice after advice over many years of the health impacts we're already seeing through climate change but will only get worse over time if we don't meet those Paris commitments. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum, which surveys the world's leading global business leaders, found that, of the 10 leading global risks identified by those leaders, the top three were extreme weather events, a failure to mitigate climate change, and natural disasters, reflecting advice from the Reserve Bank earlier this month about the risks to the global financial system that are posed by climate change and the legal responsibilities that company directors are now recognised as having, as identified by APRA, ASIC and economic regulators across the world.

The world is currently on track to exceed three degrees of global warming, which would be utterly catastrophic for the planet and for humanity. There is a dangerous level of complacency that has crept into the public debate, and particularly the parliamentary debate on climate change here in Australia. We're told by the Prime Minister and leading media figures that we're going to meet our Paris commitments in a canter and everything is going fine. Well, Australia's Paris targets are consistent with more than three degrees of global warming and we frankly are just not on track to meet those. Our Kyoto commitment is to cut, by next year, our carbon emissions by five per cent on 2000 levels, but only in the last several weeks the government has released projections showing that in 2020 carbon emissions will actually be higher than they were in 2000, not five per cent below. Carbon emissions are projected by the government's own department to continue rising all the way to 2030. So, at best, we'll be seven per cent below 2005 levels by that year, not the 26 to 28 per cent below that the government signed up to in the Paris agreement.

All of this means that we are failing our children, our grandchildren and generations beyond that, because it is within the power of this generation to ensure that global warming is kept well below two degrees and that we pursue efforts around 1.5, recognising that two degrees is not a safe threshold. According to the world's leading climate scientists, even two degrees of global warming will mean that more than 99 per cent of the world's coral reefs are lost. According to the World Bank, it will mean that by the middle of the century global cereal production will have reduced by 20 per cent and by as much as 50 per cent in the continent of Africa. This complacency also means that Australia is missing out on very serious investment and job opportunities. For example, according to Bloomberg, renewable energy investment has been slashed by 50 per cent already in just the first six months of this year. This motion is a chance for the parliament to change course. It's not a substantive motion in policy terms but it is an attempt to have the parliament recognise the gravity of this challenge.

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