The Greens have called on Labor to listen to business leaders like Dr Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest who today called for a climate trigger in environment law at the National Press Club. His call stands in stark contrast to the recent Labor Bill to make offshore gas expansion exempt from existing environment law. The Greens have a bill for a climate trigger before the Parliament.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is Greens Environment Spokesperson and Manager of Business in the Senate for the Greens:
“Today Twiggy Forrest backed the growing call for a climate trigger in environment law and I hope that Labor were listening – they should back my bill for a climate trigger before the Parliament right now.
“Twiggy Forrest made the business case for ensuring that big projects should be assessed for their climate damage before being given any environmental approval. Business leaders like Dr Forrest can see that, for the sake of our environment and economy, we need to stop expanding fossil fuels – sadly that stands in stark contrast with too many politicians in our Parliament.
“Our environment laws are broken while they continue to allow the approval of new coal and gas, and increase fossil fuel pollution regardless of the impact on the environment and climate.
“President Biden is considering a similar law to hold polluters accountable and stop new mega LNG gas projects, but Labor is trying to take us in the opposite direction.
“The Greens Bill for a climate trigger will tackle this and I encourage Minister Plibersek to work constructively to pass it. Every time the Minister approves a new coal, gas or native forest logging project the climate and extinction crises get worse.”
Transcript from Twiggy Forrest at NPC today:
“First, I propose a best-for-Australia test which explicitly considers climate impacts when approving and managing new projects. Every project up for government approval must have a climate trigger. That means we must take the climate change and carbon pollution impact into account in any project approval. It will be seen as asinine if we don’t. It’s long overdue that we do. It’s a simple and reasonable government requirement that carbon emissions and global warming automatically be part of any environmental assessment. Energy companies who will quickly pivot – they don’t have to now – will quickly pivot to green energy to meet their contracts. A similar policy is being considered in the United States, where President Biden has caused LNG export projects, pending assessment of their impacts on climate change and other matters of national security. It’s about time.”