Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I also had a question before the minister, before Senator Duniam jumped up. There are a couple of things. Senator Duniam, the 75 per cent target is not controversial. It's been modelled by the IPCC. It's well recognised that that is what is necessary for us to meet the Paris targets. This goes directly to this debate that we're having here today and this amendment before the chair that was put by Senator Waters. Seventy-five per cent is not controversial. And I wonder whether you have modelled the impact on power prices of the climate emergency in the next 20 or 30 years, from extreme heatwaves and extreme cold and floods. I bet you haven't thought about the cost of inaction, have you? Anyway, I do digress.

I would like to get back to my question to the minister. Minister, we also have a mandate—the Australian Greens. We have the balance of power in the Senate because millions of Australians voted for real climate action. It's entirely legitimate for us to be in here fighting for our mandate, as it is for Senator Pocock, for the people who voted for us and for climate action and the one in three Australians who now vote outside the two major parties. It might seem like a small thing, 1½ to two degrees. But Minister, I'm confused about your response here today. Regarding your target of 43 per cent, regardless of whether you feel you have a mandate for that—that's not the issue before the chair—the question is: does 43 per cent equate to an ambition of limiting global warming to two degrees this century? It clearly does. Two degrees is different to 1½ degrees. In fact, all the things we've seen, especially in the past decade—the extreme weather events we've seen in Australia, the fires, the floods, back-to-back bleachings on the Great Barrier Reef, a bleaching during a La Nina year, record La Nina weather in the past nine months—are all happening on one degree of warming above preindustrial levels.

We are talking about trying to hold that to 1½ degrees. To put that in perspective, that is 50 per cent warmer than the planet is right now. Your bill here today will double the amount of warming captured in this atmosphere this century—a 100 per cent increase. An ambition of 43 per cent by 2030 means a 100 per cent increase in warming on this planet. So, the difference between 1½ and two degrees is so material.

My second question to you is, do you agree with the IPCC assessment that if we can't limit warming to 1½ degrees then we will see an annual bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef and the loss of 99 per cent of the world's corals probably in our lifetime? That's how serious this is. This is not climate ambition. This is not what I've been fighting for in this place for the past nine years, during the swamp and desert years of the LNP, as they sat back and watched the fire burn the house down. This is not the climate ambition that Australians voted for. So we need to be very clear here. Why, Minister, are you, for example, opening up 46,000 square kilometres of new ocean acreage to oil and gas companies to explore for the exact product that, when they burn it, is killing our oceans and warming our planet and condemning future generations on this planet? Can you please explain to me—and I'm asking this in relation to the second reading amendment that was moved last night in here by my colleague Senator Shoebridge—why you are opening up new areas of ocean to oil and gas exploration in a time of climate emergency while you are trying to limit emissions and Australia's emissions ambition?