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

It's disappointing, Minister. Obviously, you want us to support taking the first step today towards facilitating new fossil fuel developments, which of course the Greens totally oppose in every strand of our DNA. The report from the UN that I've just highlighted is an example of the, at best, extreme cognitive dissonance of countries around the world, like Australia, that continue to ramp up fossil fuel production. At worst, it's a symptom of a completely broken machine where politics as usual has failed us. Carbon capture and storage is a unicorn technology that has been touted for decades as a potential solution to allow fossil fuel production and development to continue. In 2023, we're still talking about it without any guarantees, including at least supporting these basic amendments that the Greens have moved.

I will put in context our very strong views as a political party and explain why we are in the Senate talking to this legislation and why we have spent four days working with Senator Pocock and other senators to scrutinise this legislation. Marine heatwaves have increased by 50 per cent over the past decade, and they now last longer and are getting more severe. That was outlined in the Code blue report yesterday. The temperature of the waters around Australia is predicted to warm by one to two degrees Celsius by the 2030s and two to three degrees Celsius by the 2070s, with the greatest warming happening off south-east Australia and in the Tasman Sea.

Temporary Chair Bilyk, that's happening in our home state of Tasmania, which is already dealing with record marine heatwaves and the damage they're doing to commercial fisheries, to rec fishing values and to coastal communities, not to mention our precious marine life and biodiversity. More than 500 common species of fish, seaweed, coral and invertebrates that live on reefs around Australia have declined in the past decade. The study, which is led by Professor Graham Edgar who was scientist of the year in Tasmania only two years ago, was published last year. It mentioned 1,057 species and found 57 per cent of them had declined in their population numbers, and almost 300 were declining at a rate that could qualify them as a threatened species. Modelling predicts that some stocks in the southern and eastern scalefish and shark fisheries may decline by 20 per cent or more by 2040 due to climate impacts.

Rising ocean temperatures have caused six mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef. Contrary to what Senator Hanson said yesterday, which was that mass coral bleaching events have been occurring throughout history, the first ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef was in 1998. We then had events in 2002, 2016 and 2017—I initiated a Senate inquiry at that time into warming oceans where we explored the impacts these events were having on the Great Barrier Reef—and other events in 2020 and 2022. The most recent event was the first time ever in our history we have seen a mass coral bleaching event in a La Nina year. This year 91 per cent of reefs surveyed on the Great Barrier Reef were affected by coral bleaching. In the space of one human lifetime, 95 per cent of Tasmania's once widespread giant kelp forest have vanished due to climate change. We know that golden kelp, another previously abundant species of kelp habitat for fisheries and marine life, is also in severe decline. There is a current push to get it listed as a threatened habitat, as giant kelp was listed in 2012. We have seen similar things with seagrasses, mangroves in North Queensland and crayweed around New South Wales, which is critical habitat for the rock lobster industry. All this is happening because of changing ocean temperatures and currents linked to climate change.

But still we are in here passing legislation to facilitate new fossil fuel projects, which are throwing fuel on the fire. Over the summer of 2015, 40 million mangroves died of thirst. That was something the Senate looked at, and it was discovered by accident. Hundreds of kilometres of mangroves just died. A habitat that is adapted to be warmest possible waters vanished because of climate change. This vast die-off was the world's largest ever recorded, and it happened in Queensland, spanning more than a thousand kilometres of coastline on Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria. That is just what's happening in Australia; now let's talk about what is going on around the world. We have had 10 records broken this year globally that have been recognised by scientists—undisputable facts. In July 2023 the hottest month on earth ever in human history was recorded. This was the stark finding of the European Commission's Copernicus Climate Change Service, which also found we had an average temperature of 17 degrees Celsius in July. This is the highest level ever recorded in human history for that month. By the way, it has been reported in the media today that 2023 will almost certainly be the hottest year in human history. The second finding was in Greece, where there was a 17-day heatwave in July, and we saw the fires that went with that. According to the Athens Institute of Environmental Research, this was a record heatwave for Greece, where temperatures exceeded 45 degrees and forest fires multiplied, which led to the biggest evacuation operation ever carried out in Greece's history. Thirty thousand people on Rhodes and other islands, like Corfu, were evacuated in August.

These heatwaves are now officially a public health issue in the EU. According to the World Health Organization they caused more than 60,000 deaths in Europe.

The 31-day heatwave in Phoenix USA is another record. Phoenix USA has 1.6 million inhabitants. On oceans, we had a surface temperature record for the Atlantic Ocean. The United Nations Environment Programme said the ocean is the hottest it has ever been in recorded history. The water reached 38 degrees in the Mediterranean and an absolute record of 28.7 degrees in July in Florida. By the way, the corals in the Caribbean are pretty much kaput. Torrential rain in Beijing—more records. Morocco broke the 50-degree barrier for the first time in its history. The town of Lahaina in Hawaii was nearly wiped off the map because of record weather patterns never seen before and wildfire.

In Canada, a record number of mega fires and surface areas burned. Six hundred fires were out of control, and nearly 5,738 blazes burnt nearly 13.7 million hectares, more than one per cent of their country. The freezing point was registered at the record altitude of 5,298 metres in Switzerland, 115 metres higher than in 2022, which is much higher than Europe's highest peak, Mount Blanc. It is another blow for glaciers that have already suffered this year according to the Swiss glacier monitoring network. It was 41.8 degrees Celsius in the middle of winter in Brazil. The northern hemisphere is not the only one being affected, and we are about to feel it here in Australia; indeed, we already are.

There have been so many weather records broken that it is hard to keep track. It is literally happening every day. In Senate estimates, the Bureau of Meteorology confirmed records are falling every day around the world. And here we are again passing special legislation directly quoting the climate minister, whose job, you would imagine, is to act on climate change in line with our commitments at Glasgow and to the Paris agreement. Here we are bringing a special piece of legislation to facilitate carbon-and-capture storage projects to allow the development of new fossil fuel projects. They are not my words as a Greens senator or the words of my party; they are the words of Mr Chris Bowen, which I have read out many times in my contributions of recent days.

Minister, do you acknowledge these records around the world? How is it possible that your government is trying to facilitate new fossil fuel projects?