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

I move:

That this House:

(1) declares an environment and climate emergency;

(2) recognises that:

  (a) the recent report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5C, indicates that we are facing a climate emergency, and as a result, meaningful action on climate change is urgent, at home and internationally;

  (b) this IPCC report has found that the world is not on track to limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius;

  (c) at a national level, England, France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Canada have all declared a climate emergency; and

  (d) extreme weather events will devastate large parts of Australia and radically impact food production, water availability, public health, infrastructure, the community and the financial system;

(3) notes that the Government has acknowledged urgent action is required to address climate change; and

(4) calls on the Government to take urgent action consistent with the internationally accepted science.

Over three degrees of global warming is what we are currently on track for—3.4 to be precise. We were told at the global summit—which the Prime Minister snubbed in favour of meeting Donald Trump and a Liberal Party donor—that over three degrees of global warming is what the government has us on track for. We have just lived through catastrophic fires that have happened at one degree of global warming. That is what has happened at one degree. We have been told that we could hit 1½ degrees of global warming as soon as 2030. We are no longer talking about our kids' lifetimes or our grandkids' lifetimes; we are talking about our lifetime. We could tip over dangerous global warming tipping points of 1½ degrees as soon as 2030. This is an emergency and it is time to tell it like it is.

The Prime Minister says, 'It's okay; I'm taking action on global warming and I've got it under control.' He does not have the climate crisis under control and he has no plan to get it under control. The more that the Prime Minister says we can talk about action in the future and keep putting it off to the never-never and putting it off and putting it off, the more he puts us all at risk and fails in his first duty, which is to keep people safe. The answer has to be to start telling it like it is, and that begins with declaring a climate emergency which is why I am moving this motion.

In my first media conference after becoming Greens leader, I said we should refuse a future in which our children are wearing gas masks because their cities are full of smoke. But that is what we have just experienced over this summer and that is what is in store for us unless we get this under control. I also spoke about the people that I meet who are angry and anxious and desperately looking for leadership. Now is the time to face up to the reality of the powers we face if we are to save the planet and save the future.

The last time there was as much carbon dioxide in the air as there is at the moment was at least 2.6 million years ago, before humans existed. Back then, temperatures were more than three degrees warmer, there were trees in Antarctica and sea levels were 25 metres higher. If we keep polluting at the current rate, we could be at 1,000 parts per million by the end of the century. Last time that happened, dinosaurs roamed the earth. Like them, we face an existential crisis brought on by a rapid shift in the climate system, but this time it has been created by us. This world, as former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said just a couple of days ago, is an uninhabitable world. If we are on track for up to four degrees—we are talking about a world that might happen during my kids' lifetime—the carrying capacity of the population of the world will be reduced to a billion people or less.

I have an unwavering belief that nothing will stop the clean energy revolution. Nothing will stop the scientists and engineers from solving these problems. We will get there eventually, but the problem is that we don't have until eventually. We have to act now. If we reach net zero by 2050 or 2060 or 2070, we still confront disaster without science based targets now, and that means urgent action now. That's why the government and the whole of society must recognise that we are in an emergency and take action at emergency speed, devoting all the resources we need to stop a threat that simply may become overwhelming.

Next week I will introduce to the Commonwealth parliament the Climate Emergency Declaration Bill. This bill will declare a climate emergency, require every government department to be guided by the declaration and mandate the establishment of what was called in the past a war cabinet to guide the country through rapid society-wide and economy-wide mobilisation to decarbonise the economy. This bill and this motion reflect the scale of the crisis we face and the scale of action we need.

Winston Churchill was a flawed man and a flawed Prime Minister, but in his greatest hours he reached across the aisle during World War II and formed a grand coalition with the Labour Party and others. I know it seems incomprehensible in today's political context that this could happen, but it's what should happen and it's what we need to keep fighting for, because the time for appeasement is over. We need climate change Churchills, not climate change Chamberlains like we have on the government benches.

It is time for a green new deal. A green new deal is a government led plan of investment and action to build a clean economy and a caring society, a plan where we can fight the climate crisis and inequality at the same time, but right here, today, we have no choice but to tell the truth about the crisis we face and what is needed. The time for half measures is over because time is running out, and that is why parliament should pass this declaration.

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