Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table an explanatory memorandum and seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022

Second Reading Speech

Senator Hanson-Young

"The gl aring gap in matters of national environmental significance is climate change. This bill closes that gap."

These aren't my words, these are the words to a second reading speech introducing a climate trigger bill in 2005. The words belong to a member of the House then—who is still a member of the House today: Prime Minister Albanese.

He went on.

"It is time to act. It is time for procrastination to end. The tragic events in New Orleans and in other southern states in the United States of America highlight exactly what can be expected from the impact of climate change. We cannot any longer afford to be complacent on this issue. We need action and one of the actions that we need, which has been acknowledged for many years, is this amendment to the E PBC Act. We urge the government to support this private member's bill."

Since the day that the now Prime Minister urged the Howard Government to end the complacency and support his climate trigger bill, Australia has pumped close to 9 billion tonnes of heat trapping gases into our atmosphere and oceans.

His point remains valid. The glaring gap in our environmental law is still that we allow global heating to become worse.

The climate crisis and the extinction crisis are one and the same.

At the beginning of this new government's term, they released the State of the Environment report. A report hidden from view by the Morrison government. I just want to quote a few short sections of the climate change section of that report.

"With further impacts on the cultural environment and Indigenous economies, First Nations knowledge and knowledge systems are at further risk of destruction."

The Greens acknowledge this, and we say again that there can be no climate justice without First Nations justice.

The report continues: "Flora species are disappearing and are at risk of extinction."

"Fauna species are forced to leave their habitats, which places stresses on the new ecosystems they migrate to"

"Human wellbeing…air quality, safe drinking water, sufficient food, secure shelter"

These taken for granted essentials can't be guaranteed if global heating continues on its current path.

We are in an emergency—and the first thing to do in an emergency is check to see if you can remove the danger—if you can stop what is causing the harm.

What is causing the harm is coal, oil and gas. Australia is the third biggest exporter of these planet cooking products after Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Our biggest contribution to the global climate challenge is the mining, burning and exporting of coal and gas.

The biggest contribution Australia can make to stop ecosystem collapse is to prevent these 114 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline from ever being built. That is what this bill will do.

We can have a debate about how to phase out the existing infrastructure in place, but the very first thing we have to agree on is to not making the problem worse by opening up new coal and gas projects.

And that is why a climate trigger law needs to be in place—to stop new coal, oil and gas projects.

If the government approves new coal and gas today, it will lock in more emissions and warmer oceans and atmosphere for decades to come.

BHP, who claims to have signed up to net zero, just filed an application for a coal mine expansion that will operate until the year 2113.

Queensland Labor last week approved the Acland thermal coal mine

The Federal Minister for Resources just released 10 new oil and gas leases covering 46,758 square kilometres of our oceans to be exploited and add to our extinction crisis.

The Federal Minister for the Environment just approved a gas-powered fertiliser plant next to culturally important rock art made by Murujuga ancestors 40,000 years ago. This art will be eroded from chemical reactions or they will be removed from its location.

That is not environmental protection, it is profit protection.

There are 114 coal and gas projects in the pipeline. For our sake and our children's sake, not one of those projects can proceed.

If even one of the larger projects proceeds, even the unscientific 43% target won't be met and we can say goodbye to net zero by 2050.

Look at Santos' Barossa project being challenged in the courts right now by Tiwi Islanders, Woodside's Scarborough project in WA, Kerry Stokes and Victorian Labor's gas project next to Victoria's 12 Apostles and the Beetaloo Basin in the NT, which will blow up our national emissions as high as 11.3 per cent: none of these currently require emissions impacts to be considered in their approvals.

The United Nations, the International Energy Agency, school kids striking for climate, the Greens, scientists, millions of Australians and even the Pope are all saying: 'we can't open up any new coal, oil or gas fields'.

Australia's leading role in extinction tells us that our environment laws are broken. The government has committed to reform them and the Greens likewise give our commitment that we want to make these laws as ambitious as they need to be.

The only thing stopping us from closing the climate loophole is the Labor party.

This glaring gap, as the Prime Minister called it, can be fixed right now with this bill. The Bill sets a trigger for new emissions intensive projects with two thresholds.

Firstly, a class of Significant Emissions.For projects that would emit between 25,000 to 100,000 tonnes of scope 1 emissions in any one year, including in pre-construction stage, the Minister must consider the project through Part 9 of the Act, as the Minister currently does with other matters of national environmental significance.

As part of this assessment, the Minister must consider this: will the project be consistent with the remaining national carbon budget we have left until we hit net zero?

This bill obliges the Climate Change Authority to develop a national carbon budget to 2050 to be updated annually so everyone is clear just how little scope we have left to burn fossil fuels.

The second threshold is a prohibited impact on emissions. For projects that would emit above 100,000 tonnes in any one year, these projects would be treated similarly to nuclear projects under the Act, where the Minister is forced to reject any application for the project.

The bill will require the Minister to also consider the remaining national carbon budget and Australia's greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets when deciding whether to enter into a conservation agreement, and the bill also allows these considerations to inform bioregional plans. This is designed to allow climate change considerations to be factored into planning considerations more broadly.

Finally, the Minister will be expressly prohibited from using certain alternative approval processes for emissions intensive projects.

If this bill is supported by the government, it can be the greatest single contribution Australia can make right now to put genuine action into the slogan that the Prime Minister has told the Pacific and the world that Australia is coming to the table and we are serious about doing our fair share to stop runaway global heating.

So I commend this bill to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.