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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

'The glaring gap in matters of national environmental significance is climate change. This bill closes that gap.' These aren't my words; these are the words to a second reading speech introducing a climate trigger bill in 2005. The words belong to a member of the House then who is still a member of the House today: Prime Minister Albanese. He went on.

It is time to act. It is time for procrastination to end. The tragic events in New Orleans and in other southern states in the United States of America highlight exactly what can be expected from the impact of climate change. We cannot any longer afford to be complacent on this issue. We need action and one of the actions that we need, which has been acknowledged for many years, is this amendment to the EPBC Act. We urge the government to support this private member's bill.

Since the day that the now Prime Minister urged the Howard government to end the complacency and support his climate trigger bill, Australia has pumped close to nine billion tonnes of heat-trapping gases into our atmosphere and oceans.

His point remains valid. The glaring gap in our environmental law is still that we allow global heating to become worse.

The climate crisis and the extinction crisis are one and the same.

At the beginning of this new government's term, they released the state of the environment report. A report hidden from view by the Morrison government. I just want to quote a few short sections of the climate change section of that report:

With further impacts on the cultural environment and Indigenous economies, Indigenous people's knowledge and knowledge systems are at further risk of destruction.

The Greens acknowledge this and we say again that there can be no climate justice without First Nations justice.

The report continues:

Flora species are disappearing and are at risk of extinction … Fauna species are forced to leave their habitats, which in turn places stresses on the ecosystems they migrate to.

…   …   …

… human wellbeing … air quality, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter …

These taken-for-granted essentials cannot be guaranteed if global heating continues on its current path.

We are in an emergency—and the first thing to do in an emergency is check to see if you can remove the danger—if you can stop what is causing the harm.

What is causing the harm is coal, oil and gas. Australia is the third biggest exporter of these planet-cooking products and climate pollution after Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Our biggest contribution to the global climate challenge is the mining, burning and exporting of coal and gas.

The biggest contribution Australia can make to stop ecosystem collapse is to prevent the 114 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline from ever being built. And that is what this bill will do.

We can have a debate about how to phase out the existing infrastructure in place, but the very first thing we have to agree on is not to make the problem worse by opening up new coal and gas projects.

And that is why a climate trigger law needs to be in place—to stop new coal, oil and gas projects.

If the government approves new coal and gas today, it will lock in more emissions and warmer oceans and atmosphere for decades to come.

BHP, who claims to have signed up to net zero, just filed an application for a coalmine expansion that will operate till the year 2113.

Queensland Labor last week approved the Acland thermal coalmine.

The federal Minister for Resources just released 10 new oil and gas leases covering 46,758 square kilometres of our oceans to be exploited and to add to our extinction crisis.

The federal minister for the environment just approved a gas powered fertiliser plant next to culturally important rock art made by Murujuga ancestors 40,000 years ago. This art will be eroded from chemical reactions or they will be removed from its location.

That is not environmental protection, it is profit protection.

There are 114 coal and gas projects in the pipeline. For our sake and for our children's sake, not one of those projects can proceed.

If even one of the larger projects proceeds, even the unscientific 43 per cent target of the government's won't be met and we can say goodbye to net zero by 2050.

Look at Santos's Barossa project being challenged in the courts right now by Tiwi Islanders, Woodside's Scarborough project in WA, Kerry Stokes and Victorian Labor's gas project next to Victoria's Twelve Apostles and the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory, which will blow up our national emissions as high as 11.3 per cent: none of these currently require emissions impact to be considered in their approvals.

The United Nations, the International Energy Agency, schoolkids striking for climate, the Greens, scientists, millions of Australians and even the Pope are all saying: 'We can't open up any new coal, oil or gas fields.'

Australia's leading role in extinction tells us that our environment laws are broken. The government has committed to reform them and the Greens likewise give our commitment that we want to make these laws as ambitious as they need to be.

The only thing stopping us from closing this climate loophole is the Labor Party.

This glaring gap, as the now Prime Minister called it, can be fixed right now with this bill. This bill sets a trigger for new emissions-intensive projects with two thresholds.

Firstly, a class of significant emissions.For projects that would emit between 25,000 to 100,000 tonnes of scope 1 emissions in any one year, including in pre-construction stage, the minister must consider the project through part 9 of the act, as the minister currently does with other matters of national environmental significance.

As part of this assessment, the minister must consider this: will the project be consistent with the remaining national carbon budget we have left until we hit net zero?

This bill obliges the Climate Change Authority to develop a national carbon budget to 2050 to be updated annually so everyone is clear just how little scope we have left to burn fossil fuels.

The second threshold is a prohibited impact on emissions. For projects that would emit above 100,000 tonnes in any one year, these projects would be treated similarly to nuclear projects under the act, where the minister is forced to reject any application for the project.

The bill will require the minister to also consider the remaining national carbon budget and Australia's greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets when deciding whether to enter into a conservation agreement, and the bill also allows these considerations to inform bioregional plans. This is designed to allow climate change considerations to be factored into planning considerations more broadly.

Finally, the minister will be expressly prohibited from using certain alternative approval processes for emissions intensive projects.

If this bill is supported by the government, it can be the greatest single contribution Australia can make right now to put genuine action into the slogan that the Prime Minister has told the Pacific and the world that Australia is coming to the table and we are serious about doing our fair share to stop runaway global heating.

I commend this bill to the House.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second this bill. We are at one of the most critical crossroads in our nation's history. We in this parliament have the opportunity to make the right decisions for our future, for the future of our children and grandchildren. Our current Prime Minister said 17 years ago that it was time to act on a climate trigger bill. Tragically, since then, the profits of coal and gas corporations have been put ahead of climate action, and the urgency of our situation has multiplied exponentially.

We are already living the catastrophes caused by climate inaction. We knew then what we needed to do, and we didn't do it. That is why there are now so many new faces in this House—to act. No more time for procrastination, as Mr Albanese said then. Now, Mr Albanese is in the position to act. We know our biggest contribution to climate change is the burning of coal and gas. We know there are 114 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline. And we know that, even if a handful of these projects go ahead, we can kiss goodbye to any hope of ever meeting the known targets to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees. We know that going above 1.5 degrees of heating means wholesale catastrophe and an uninhabitable, unimaginable world for all our grandchildren. These are facts.

How could any one of us in this House with any conscience, with any sense of responsibility, allow this? How can we sit here, when we have the collective power to do something, and not do it? This bill does something. With the two threshold triggers and the alternative approval prohibitions, it will finally put a safe future for all of us ahead of coal and gas profits.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.