Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There is so much to be despairing about in the world at the moment. There are thousands dead in Israel and Palestine. We have a humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine, with war crimes being committed and complete disregard for international law. We have the rise of racism across the world. Very sadly, we had the defeat over the weekend of a very moderate proposal for a First Nations Voice to Parliament. We've got authoritarian, oppressive regimes rising around the world. We have the climate crisis. It's not hyperbole to say that the climate crisis is an existential threat to our wellbeing, to the lives of billions and billions of humans on this planet and to our food supplies. In so many of these huge things to despair about, these existential threats to the wellbeing of billions of people on the planet, Australia only plays a pretty small role. There is not much we can do other than advocate and use our influence on the global stage. But on the climate crisis, we are powerful. We can act, and act we must.

If you are in any doubt about what we are facing, I do recommend reading the book I'm currently reading—Humanity's Moment by IPCC lead author, Joelle Gergis. It leaves you in no doubt at all just how freaking serious what we are facing is. I remind people, as I have in so many speeches in this place, that with four degrees of global heating, which the world is currently on track for, the climate of our wheat-growing areas here in Australia will become like the climate of the central deserts. We will not be able to grow our food. I remind people that with four degrees of global heating, billions of people who currently live in the tropics will not be able to live in the tropics; they will die. The land that they are living on will be underwater. They will not be able to grow food. They will not be able to survive the extreme heat. Their water supplies will be completely cactus, as will the lives of so many other species that we share this planet with, from the penguins currently affected by the melting sea ice and the unprecedented warm ocean temperatures to all the sea creatures that depend on the Great Barrier Reef. No-one looking clear eyed is going to say that the Great Barrier Reef is going to be in very good shape after the next two summers. The animals that live in our incredible tall wet forests across the country are going to be under threat of massive bushfires that we have never seen before over the next two summers and then getting worse as the temperatures get hotter and hotter.

Balance doesn't cut it. Balance means catastrophe. We have to act. We can and we must act. Australia is the largest exporter of gas in the world. We are the second-largest exporter of coal. We have the power to stop approving and to stop opening up new coal and gas mines. We have the power to stop exporting what is causing the climate crisis. We have to do that if we're going to be playing our role in tackling the climate crisis. We have the power to listen to the climate scientists, to treat the crisis as an emergency. We have the power to shift our energy supplies here to 100 per cent renewable energy and to slash our overall carbon emissions. And we have the power to change our environment laws so that the minister has to take account of the climate crisis in considering whether or not to approve projects.

For goodness sake, the very minimum that we must do as Australians is insert a climate trigger into our environment laws, absolutely. But you hear both sides saying it is too much. I tell people if they will not listen that there is only one thing we can do. We have to chuck them out, because we know what is at stake. If people are concerned about climate then don't vote for them, chuck them out, let the consequences be felt at elections to come, because we know there are things that we can do. The Greens are committed to taking action to build a safer climate, to restore a safe climate for all of humanity. I encourage people to work with us so we can do our best to make it happen.