Matters of Urgency — Climate Change

Louise Pratt

I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter from Senator McKim:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today the Australian Greens propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

With Antarctic sea ice the size of Western Australia missing this winter, the hottest global month ever recorded, extreme fires and heatwaves across the northern hemisphere and record Atlantic Ocean temperatures, the United Nations Secretary-General has declared that the world is boiling. The urgency of this escalating crisis requires urgent and profound action from all global leaders, including Australia's Labor Government that must commit to no new coal and gas and an immediate end to native forest logging."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in accordance with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Mehreen Faruqi

At the request of Senator McKim, I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

With Antarctic sea ice the size of Western Australia missing this winter, the hottest global month ever recorded, extreme fires and heatwaves across the northern hemisphere and record Atlantic Ocean temperatures, the United Nations Secretary-General has declared that the world is boiling. The urgency of this escalating crisis requires urgent and profound action from all global leaders, including Australia's Labor Government that must commit to no new coal and gas and an immediate end to native forest logging.

I rise to share the sentiments that so many people in Australia and around the world are feeling, a dreadful fear—fear about the climate crisis we are in: the fires, the extreme heat, the droughts, the floods which worsen every single year. The globe isn't just warming up anymore; it is cooking. We are in the era of global boiling, and, yes, it is as terrifying as it sounds. With Antarctic ice the size of Western Australia missing this winter, July being the hottest month ever recorded, extreme fires and heatwaves ravaging the northern hemisphere and record Atlantic Ocean temperatures, the unambiguously apocalyptic climate warnings that scientists, the United Nations and the other experts and agencies have been sounding are actually being realised. There is also anger—a deep anger—at this government's arrogance and refusal to take the urgent and profound action needed in the midst of this absolute emergency. People are crying out for urgent action, for us to do so much better as a country on climate, to lead the world in climate action and to fight with everything that we've got to give our planet and our children the chance of a livable future that they so deserve.

Coal and gas are fuelling this extreme climate crisis, and Australia is one of the biggest exporters of fossil fuels. While the globe boils, what is Labor doing? It's turning up the temperature by opening new coal and gas. They are making it worse, with the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, giving the tick of approval to three climate bombs just this year. That's right—Labor aren't just letting us careless coast along towards climate collapse. No, they are actively driving us there. If this insatiable appetite to dig up coal and gas continues, there are predictions that our planet could catastrophically warm but 1.5 degrees as early as 2027—that's just four years away—bringing on the irreversible collapse of ecosystems. What we are seeing in the northern hemisphere now will hit Australia this summer.

Why is Labor wilfully ignoring all the signs, the code reds, the flashing lights and the blaring sirens? Is it just a lack of courage stopping them from taking the profound action that is needed? Unfortunately, it is worse than just a lack of foresight or courage. It's much more sinister. Labor know full well the inadequacy of their responses, but they are so beholden to the climate wrecking, morally bankrupt fossil fuel corporations who fill their pockets with dirty donations that they don't care. The Labor Party are held to ransom by their buddies in big coal and gas—companies who, by the way, pay next to no tax and are using oppressive SLAPP suits to silence activists alerting us to the climate emergency. They would rather the planet boil than stand up to these companies and risk their own coffers.

Australia's coal and gas are causing climate disasters everywhere. It is our neighbours in the Pacific and indigenous people and people of colour in the global south who are on the front line and who will be most harmed by the climate crisis, but they have contributed the least to global emissions. They have been sounding the alarm at every international forum for decades, and yet leaders of rich countries like Australia and the global north have ignored their pleas for climate justice. I have just returned from Pakistan after seeing my ammi. Australia's criminal inaction on climate is deeply felt there—felt in the extreme heat, felt in the melting glaciers washing away entire villages and felt in the everyday life of children in Pakistan who are suffocating in an ever deadly mix of intense heat and trapped pollution.

We must also remember to lift our gaze. We must start a process of making climate reparations to the global south countries who are most harmed by Australia's contribution to the climate crisis. This is not charity but compensation for harms that Australia continues to directly cause and Australia now has an opportunity to redress. It is time to take real action on climate. Labor must commit to an immediate end to native forest logging. The Prime Minister and Labor must stop approving new coal and gas projects and push the world to do the same. That is the kind of leadership we demand from Australia.

Matthew Canavan

I have never heard a greater spray or screed of double standards in this place. I was not going to raise the Pakistan issue, but since Senator Faruqi has she might be interested to know—and I don't know if this came up in discussions over there on the subcontinent—that in February, less than six months ago, under a headline from Reuters it was reported that Pakistan plans to quadruple domestic coal-fired power and move away from gas. But she has the temerity to come into this place and blame this country for this climate crisis while failing to mention—and I'm sure she would know—that Pakistan is turning on more coal-fired power stations just as they're going out of fashion. How about we apply an equal standard here? Why are the Greens so quick to damn Australia, our country and our people, but are so quick to let others off the hook, whether it is Pakistan, China, India or Europe—and I'll come to Europe later.

The other broader double standard in this contribution today is that every time it's cold we are told the weather is not climate, and then as soon as it is hot in Rome apparently the weather is climate. What a double standard. Do the Greens remember May? Only a few months ago in May—and I am quoting from a report—more than 100 weather stations across Australia registered their coldest May minimum temperatures on record. I'm not saying that is climate, but you are. You are saying that because it is a bit hot in Europe at the moment it's global boiling, which is apparently the term now. Global warming is no longer useful, so they have come up with a new term to replace the old term to scare us even more. But they are just using weather, using data points, to justify putting a massive new restriction on our own economic restrictions while they are ignoring the data from our own country, which shows we just had one of the coldest Mays on record.

Why do you ignore that? It does not make any sense because what is actually happening around the world, not just in Pakistan—a news flash for the Greens—is the world is increasing its use of coal. But that's not the case in Australia. We are getting blamed. The Greens constantly blame us. They want to blame their own country and their own people, yet they ignore—

Peter Whish-Wilson

Where are they getting the coal from, you goose?

Matthew Canavan

It's not from Australia—I'll take that interjection from Senator Whish-Wilson because Australia's coal production actually fell by three per cent in the past year, whereas in China it's up six per cent and in India it's up eight per cent. Europe has increased its coal production by one per cent over the last year. Our use has actually declined. If the Greens looked at the data, they would actually see that Australia is not contributing to this issue, it's the other countries that they refuse to condemn. As the International Energy Agency reported last week:

As projected in the Coal 2022 report last December, global coal demand reached a new all-time high in 2022, rising above 8.3 billion tonnes …

Australia's production actually fell by three per cent, but this new record was reached because other countries—China, Indonesia, India—are increasing their production of coal. Even Europe are increasing their reliance on coal.

It should be stated, to get the facts right here, the world uses 8,300 million tonnes of coal a year. Although it has declined a little bit, Australia's production is 450 million tonnes of the 8,300 million, so it's about 5½ per cent. We produce about 5½ per cent of the world's coal, so we're not the cause of all of these issues. And even if we were to completely shut down the coal industry here, as the Greens would want to do, it would make no difference to the climate at all. It would make no difference to the climate at all because China, India and other countries would continue to mine their own coal. They would easily be able to increase their production to replace our coal.

So, what is this actually about? It's not really about the climate. It's not about that at all. They simply want to deindustrialise Western countries. That is the agenda here. They're letting all the other countries off the hook. You never hear speeches about Xi Jinping and his policy to build two coal-fired power stations a week. There's never any condemnation of that. There's never any condemnation of India's plans to expand their coal production to over 1,000 million tonnes per year. They've achieved those plans; they achieved them in the past year. There's never any condemnation of that. There's never any condemnation of Pakistan and their plans to quadruple the coal-fired power stations in their country. If they really cared about the climate, they'd be mentioning those things as well.

What the Greens really care about is shutting down industry in Australia and shifting and redistributing that wealth to other countries. That is the agenda here, as plain as day given the double standards that are constantly espoused by those in that corner.

Long debate text truncated.