Hosting the conference would help us overcome our colonial mentality and the fossil fuel lobby, both of which have held us back from tackling climate change
As the world grapples with the climate crisis, Australia stands at a crossroads. Our bid to co-host the UN’s climate conference, Cop31, with Pacific nations is not just a diplomatic event; it is a pivotal opportunity to redefine our nation’s role in the global fight against climate change. This could mark a shift, propelling Australia from climate laggard to leader on the world stage. With the Cop presidency, we would be at the centre of international climate negotiations, shouldering the responsibility to provide the infrastructure and visionary leadership needed to drive meaningful progress. The stakes are high, but so too are the potential rewards for our nation and the planet.
For years, Australia has been held back from meaningful climate action by the powerful influence of the fossil fuel lobby. This industry has shaped policies and public opinion, prioritising short-term profits over long-term sustainability. Their grip on our political landscape has delayed the transition to cleaner energy and put us on a dangerous path that threatens the security of our communities, our environment and our economy. Now, as the cost of living skyrockets and climate impacts escalate, we’re facing the consequences of that inaction.
A Bunbury magistrate fines a business $141,000 for illegally clearing 16 hectares of land in the state’s south west, severely impacting a rare endangered honeysuckle species.
The NT Supreme Court has rejected an environmental group’s legal challenge of the approval of a fracking exploration project in the Beetaloo Basin, finding it failed to make out its grounds for review.
When Labor came to power federally after almost a decade in opposition, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek pledged to turn around Australia’s worsening environmental woes, from extinctions to land clearing to climate change.
While the government has made progress on climate action, protecting biodiversity hasn’t got out of the starting blocks.
In the latest example of inaction, proposed laws to create an independent environmental regulator, Environmental Protection Australia, appear stalled in the Senate. Labor needs the backing of the Coalition or the Greens to push the reform through. At the time of writing, no deals looked likely.
This is a real problem. A stream of audits and reviews have shown Australia’s environmental laws are not fit for purpose. Change is possible – but hard. Keeping the status quo is far easier, no matter how dysfunctional it is.
Development proposals assessed under the EPBC Act are nearly always approved.Deek/Shutterstock
The failings of the law are no secret. In 2020, an independent review by Graeme Samuel delivered blunt findings: the laws were simply not protecting nature.
So Labor changed tack. It pivoted to a staged reform process – with the full-scale revamp delayed indefinitely.
This week, Labor attempted to pass at least some change – a bill to create an independent environmental regulator, Environmental Protection Australia. But it ran into major roadblocks.
Mining companies such as Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Rio Tinto pushed for the regulator to be stripped of its powers in a private letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
And Coalition and Greens senators delivered stinging critiques, arguing variously that the regulator would be too strong or too weak.
Crossbenchers and the Greens say to win their support, Labor must end native forest logging nationally and require consideration of climate damage when assessing projects such as new coal mines for approvals.
The laws focused on threatened species and ecosystems but did not mention damage done by climate change.
Almost a quarter of a century later, we still have the same set of laws, described as ineffective or little enforced in audits and reviews.
Every year since the act came into force, Austalia’s threatened species populations have actually fallen 2-3%.
When development, agriculture and infrastructure projects do get assessed under these laws, about 99% are approved.
Experts have found the laws permit ongoing destruction of critical habitat for threatened species.
Why? While the environment minister of the day is required to consider environmental impacts of a proposal, they can essentially rule any way they like – even if it goes against the opinion of independent environmental experts, or their own bureaucrats.
Why is change so hard?
The 2020 Samuel review recommended new “national environmental standards” be enforced. These would mean explicitly defining what outcomes for nature we are aiming for, and making sure a development proposal met that standard.
For example, one proposed standard would disallow “unacceptable or unsustainable impacts” on matters of national environmental significance. These matters include internationally important wetlands and nationally threatened species. Other standards include preservation of Australia’s natural world heritage sites, such as the Great Barrier Reef.
In late 2022, Plibersek released Labor’s official response in the form of the Nature Positive Plan.
The plan seemed promising. It recognised the dire state of Australia’s species and ecosystems and labelled the current laws “ineffective”. It promised national environmental standards.
Plibersek vowed to consult on further changes. This led to a proposal to replace the EPBC Act with stronger laws, and create a new regulator – Environment Protection Australia.
As initiailly proposed, this independent agency would have power to make development decisions and ensure compliance. It would only grant approval to a project if it was consistent with national environmental standards. The minister could still step in, but had to give public reasons for doing so, and take advice from the regulator.
However, major lobby groups opposed the proposed overhaul of the laws.
In response, Plibersek changed tactics. She announced environmental reform would be in three stages.
The first was the Nature Repair Market, which passed Parliament late last year. The second stage involved the laws now before the Senate: creating Environment Protection Australia in a weaker form (without the restrictions on discretion in the initial proposal) and a data and monitoring agency, Environment Information Australia.
If passed, these bills would create a protection agency – but one which could only enforce the same weak approval laws and be subject to the same broad discretion for the decision-maker. For the agency to have teeth, the government would need to pass stage three, which would reduce discretion, introduce stronger environment laws and create legally binding National Environmental Standards.
This is a problem for Labor. Western Australia was instrumental in the party’s election win in 2022 and it needs to shore up seats in the mining-heavy state ahead of the next federal election.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to be the mining sector’s best friend if elected, by cutting “green tape”, fast tracking resource projects and defunding the Environmental Defenders Office.
All this is bad news for our threatened species and sick ecosystems. We know what needs to be done. But our government is showing worrying signs of letting industry and developers control their environmental agenda.
Justine Bell-James receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Program. She is a Director of the National Environmental Law Association, and attended the EPBC Act stakeholder consultation sessions in her capacity as Director. Her opinions in this article are her own.
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