Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Payne) to a question without notice asked by Senator Faruqi today relating to climate change, Pacific nations and the Australian aid program.

Pacific nations have repeatedly identified climate change as the single greatest threat to their security. For decades they have been calling on Australia to do more to reduce its carbon emissions. Over the last few weeks, the foreign minister has had multiple opportunities to address the demands by Pacific Island nations to act on climate change but has refused to do so. Instead, Australia has told the leaders of Pacific Island nations that they should be pleased with Australia's efforts. What should they be pleased with, Minister? The fact that your government approved the Adani coalmine, which will be a massive contributor to climate change, or the fact that the capital of Australia's export credit agency, Efic, has increased sixfold with the clear mandate to pursue Australian interests with no regards to our neighbours? We know what this means: unfettered access to taxpayer money to fast-track fossil fuel projects in the region. This undermines the climate action on which the safety of the Pacific depends. This is really a slap in the face to our Pacific neighbours, who have urged us, time and time again, to wean ourselves off coal and our addiction to climate pollution.

Minister Payne was in Fiji just last week conducting meetings behind closed doors to make sure, as The Australian reported, that there is no climate stoush at the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum. Shamefully, Australia is bringing nothing to the table at the forum to address this existential threat, proposed by the climate breakdown, to our Pacific Island neighbours.

Australia's real interests in the Pacific have been exposed time and again with successive governments looking to continue an extractive relationship with our neighbours. The government's decision to approve the Adani coalmine and their ever increasing export of coal and gas—with the emissions from this having doubled since 2000, and now more than doubled of our domestic emissions—makes us a bully in the region, pushing ahead with an agenda dictated by the fossil fuel lobby and others who profiteer from the death of our planet. This agenda condemns our neighbours in the Pacific to rising sea levels and dislocation, to severe storms and to a loss of arable land and drinking water.

Coal is the leading contributor to global climate change, and Australia, sadly, is the biggest exporter of coal. Eighty per cent of the coal that is dug up in Australia is shipped overseas to be burned, making Australia an international pariah and one of the biggest contributors to the growing climate emergency. It is Australia's addiction to coal and the bipartisan commitment to taking donations from the fossil fuel industry that have made sure we continue to relentlessly pursue this agenda. There is no way we will achieve the Paris Agreement targets under this government's present trajectory. The minister has also been sitting on the strategy for climate change in our aid program prepared by DFAT. The draft has been on her desk for more than six months now. This shows how little attention climate change gets in our overseas aid program with this government at the helm.

As the region's leading contributor to dirty emissions and a major fossil fuel exporter, it is our responsibility to do more. A just foreign aid program would not look like a checked-box exercise, where there is hardly any funding and practically no focus on climate change and resilience. Climate justice would mean that we should drastically cut our emissions. It means that there is a huge investment in climate-resilient infrastructure in the Pacific region. Through our overseas aid and international development program, we should be doing much more to support climate resilience in our Pacific neighbours. Pacific islanders are at the front line of change, and that is caused by global countries like Australia who have failed to curb their emissions, who have failed to rein in their addiction to burning and exporting fossil fuels and, lastly, who have failed in their obligation to be a good global citizen. It is not the fault of Pacific island nations that they find themselves faced with rising sea levels. We know that developing countries have contributed very little to global warming and climate change but now face some of the worst consequences. Our aid program should reflect this debt. It is a matter of global justice. We owe it to our Pacific islands nations and the world.

Question agreed to.