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

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Melbourne from moving the following motion immediately—That the House:

(1) notes the release of the sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change synthesis report on the escalating climate emergency;

(2) notes the statement by the UN Secretary-General that there can be no new coal, oil and gas projects and Australia and other developed countries must phase out coal by 2030; and

(3) calls on the Government to heed the call of the IPCC and the UN Secretary-General and stop approving new coal and gas projects.

There could be nothing more urgent and needing debate in this place today than the message that we have received from the UN Secretary-General and the world scientists overnight. The UN Secretary-General told us: 'Dear friends, humanity is on thin ice, and that ice is melting fast.' He has issued what is to us a call to defuse the climate timebomb that is ticking, and he is giving us a survival guide to humanity.

This is the final warning from the world's scientists. This is what has been referred to as our last-ditch chance. The urgency with which the world's scientists and the UN are calling on us to act cannot be underestimated and demands that we suspend standing orders today to debate this and to determine how we're going to respond. Why is this so critical? We have been told by the world's scientists overnight that we are on track to go above 1.5 degrees, and it could happen within a few years time. Why is that critical? That will mean absolute and utter devastation for our Pacific Island neighbours. They have urged us to take all steps to limit global warming to 1½ degrees or they face an existential threat. They have been crystal clear about that to us and the science is crystal clear about that to us, because what the report also tells us, overnight, that demands our urgent attention is that vulnerable communities are 15 times more likely to be affected by the extreme floods and fires and droughts and rising sea levels that we are facing at the moment. They are the ones who did not cause the climate crisis, but they are the ones who have the most to lose from the climate crisis and the least ability to respond to it.

Not only in the Torres Strait Islands but also in the Pacific islands of our neighbours, we are seeing sea levels rising and extreme storms that are damaging homes right now. But what the IPCC also told us overnight is that people are already dying from the extreme heat. The climate crisis is already taking lives and killing people. It is already happening. It is, in the words of one commentator, a 'screaming siren' that cannot be ignored.

But there is a way out. We have been given a way out, but we have to grasp it urgently. We have to grasp it urgently today. This has been made crystal clear by the UN Secretary-General:

This is the moment for all G20 members to come together in a joint effort, pooling their resources and scientific capacities as well as their proven and affordable technologies through the public and private sectors to make carbon neutrality a reality by 2050.

Every country must be part of the solution.

Demanding others move first only ensures humanity comes last.

The Acceleration Agenda calls for a number of other actions.

Specifically:

No new coal and the phasing out of coal by 2030 in OECD countries and 2040 in all other countries.

Ending all international public and private funding of coal.

Ensuring net zero electricity generation by 2035 for all developed countries and 2040 for the rest of the world.

Ceasing all licensing or funding of new oil and gas—consistent with the findings of the International Energy Agency.

Stopping any expansion of existing oil and gas reserves.

Shifting subsidies from fossil fuels to a just energy transition.

Establishing a global phase down of existing oil and gas production compatible with the 2050 global net zero target.

I urge all governments to prepare energy transition plans consistent with these actions and ready for investors.

We could not agree more. That is why, right now, we need to suspend standing orders to work out how we are going to do what the UN Secretary-General and the world's scientists have asked us to do.

We have a debate on the government's safeguard legislation, the Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Bill 2022, coming up later on today. I want to say that this isn't an attempt to delay that. We can have a debate about this and then move on to that. But we have to listen to what we are being told and take that into account as we work out in this country how we are going to tackle the climate crisis. When the UN Secretary-General calls out countries like Australia and says there can be no new coal and we must stop any expansion of existing oil and gas reserves, it is because humanity is at stake and civilisation is at stake. Every new coal and gas project opened in Australia is a death warrant for our children and our grandchildren. We are the ones who sit here now hearing the report that we may hit 1½ degrees potentially within 10 years, if not by the end of this decade. This is happening right now. The actions need to be taken right now.

There is a lot in this report on which you would find agreement among most people in this parliament. But what is crystal clear is that the single biggest thing we could do in this country is stop pouring petrol on the fire. You can't put a fire out while you're pouring petrol on it. The first step in fixing a problem has to be to stop making the problem worse. We have come a long way in this country. It is good that we saw, just under a year ago, the Australian people speak up and say, 'We want the parliament to take action on the climate crisis.' People now understand that, in order to do that, the single biggest gift that Australia could make to the rest of the world is to stop putting the rest of the world and itself in danger by exporting so much coal and gas and by using so much of it here. That is what our Pacific island neighbours have been asking us for a long time—stop opening coal and gas. It is what the scientists have been asking us for a long time. It is what the UN Secretary-General is asking us in the clearest possible terms, in the most urgent of warnings, to do and to do right now.

So that is why we have to suspend standing orders and have a debate on this now, so that when we debate the other important legislation that the government has, including legislation to tackle the climate crisis, later today and over the course of the next couple of weeks, we will do it with the warnings of the world's scientists and the advice of the UN Secretary-General ringing in our ears. There is no space left to open up new coal and gas projects. It is putting people at risk. It is putting our country risk. It is putting lives at risk. So I hope that we will have time to debate this important report, to digest the significance of it and to translate it into action. Other countries are starting to do this. When Barack Obama was president, he stopped exploration on federal lands with respect to coal. Germany had a plan and phased out its brown coal. The penny is dropping elsewhere, and the penny needs to drop here as well. If we really want fewer floods, less drought and fewer extreme weather events that take lives and livelihoods, we have to stop opening coal and gas.

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