Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

The government welcomes the report that was released last night. In commencing my remarks, I'd like to acknowledge the Australian scientists and experts who contributed to this report and to the IPCC process. Australia has a strong track record of producing world-class climate science and research. I thank them for their work.

This report will be concerning for many Australians. Scientists have been telling us for decades that without significant emissions reduction we can expect worsening and cascading climate events. The report confirms what we already know, that there is a rapidly closing window for action on climate change. Actually, Australian communities know this. They know this in their hearts because they are already experiencing the reality of climate change. Even when faced with devastating bushfires and with devastating floods, the previous government refused to act. Those on the other side, along with their enablers on the crossbench, spent 10 years arguing among themselves, refusing to do what was needed to lead Australia out of the worst effects of climate change. They presided over a decade of delay, denial and dysfunction, and they delivered nothing. Finally, we have a federal government that is committed to strong and swift reform. We are unapologetically focused on transforming Australia's domestic economy to a low-carbon economy. I will make this point. It is the most important thing that we can do to support the ambitious international action—collaborative, collective action—that is necessary to contain global warming.

We can't control the energy choices of other nations, but we can make sure that Australia makes its own contribution to build confidence that, collectively, as a globe we can do this. Of course, that is the point of the report. It sounds the warning bell of the dangers of inaction, but it makes the point that there is still a pathway, a pathway to stay below two degrees and to come as close as we can to 1½ degrees, as we agreed to in our international arrangements. This is, of course, the focus of our international effort, and we are working closely with international partners to advance practical action on climate change and build new clean supply chains. But most importantly, we are acting at home.

One of our first acts in government was to legislate an ambitious but achievable emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030 and net zero by 2050. The Powering Australia plan invests in this transformation—$20 billion to upgrade, expand and modernise our electricity grid to support more renewable power and $1.9 billion to establish the Powering the Regions Fund, which will support new jobs and the decarbonisation of emissions-intensive industries and will help ensure that regional Australians drive Australia's transformation to a renewable energy superpower. The Driving the Nation Fund and the National Electric Vehicle Strategy provide us the opportunity to invest in cleaner, cheaper transport. And while we work, while we make every effort to limit future climate change, there are some changes that we now can't avoid, and we need to support communities to adapt to the impacts that are already baked in and build their resilience.

The parliament is currently considering a most important bill, a bill to reform the safeguard mechanism, a mechanism that, until the last election, was the stated policy of those opposite. But after 10 years of denial and delay, that mechanism never actually achieved what it was supposed to do. It didn't contain rising emissions from our biggest emitters. This is the first opportunity we'll have after nearly 10 years of those guys to turn that around. Our proposal will deliver 205 million tonnes of emissions reductions by 2030. It is a workable policy that will reduce the emissions into our atmosphere. The chamber has a choice this fortnight to continue to allow big emitters to continue with no real restrictions on how much they can pollute or to require them to drive down Australia's emissions and put us on track for net zero by 2050.

Every bit of emissions reduction makes a difference. That's why we have to seize this opportunity and not squander it, because that is what the Australian people expect of us.