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senate vote 2022-09-08#7
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2022-09-17 09:12:59
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Title
Bills — Climate Change Bill 2022, Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022; in Committee- Climate Change Bill 2022, Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022 - in Committee - 2030 and 2035 targets
Description
<p class="speaker">Linda Reynolds</p><p>The committee is considering the Climate Change Bill 2022 and a related bill, and amendments (1) to (3) on sheet 1616, moved by Senator Waters.</p>-
- The majority voted against [amendments](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:legislation/billhome/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Famend%2Fr6885_amend_087acc72-6a8d-4930-b76a-ba1df9cc6053%22;rec=0) introduced by Queensland Senator [Larissa Waters](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/queensland/larissa_waters) (Greens), which means they failed.
- ### Amendment text
- > *(1) Clause 10, page 5 (line 10), omit “43%”, substitute “at least 75%”.*
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- > *[2030 target]*
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- > *(2) Clause 10, page 5 (line 16), omit “2050”, substitute “2035 and working towards negative emissions thereafter”.*
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- >*[net zero target]*
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- > *(3) Clause 10, page 5 (line 20), omit “43%”, substitute “75%”.*
- >
- > *[2030 target]*
<p class="speaker">Peter Whish-Wilson</p><p>My question for the minister is a simple one. I have three very simple questions, one that leads from the other. It has been reported through Climate Analytics and Climate Council and widely reported in the media that the ALP's 2030 target of a 43 per cent emissions reduction is consistent with two degrees of warming globally. Do you agree with that characterisation, Minister?</p> <p class="speaker">Jenny McAllister</p><p>Thank you for the question, Senator Whish-Wilson. We've been very clear that the targets that we have adopted put us on a path to meet our Paris objective commitments. As you understand, the Paris Agreement asks the world to contain warming to less than two degrees and to leave open the possibility of containing it to 1½ degrees.</p> <p class="speaker">Peter Whish-Wilson</p><p>You were very cute with your language there, Minister: 'path to meeting the Paris Agreement'. My colleague Mehreen Faruqi said publicly that your target failed the Paris Agreement. That was fact checked by AAP, who found that she was indeed correct, that your 43 per cent target is consistent with two degrees of warming, which is above the 1½ to well below two degrees of warming that is the Paris target. I'm going to assume that the two degrees is uncontroversial.</p><p>Minister, my second question to you is: do you also agree with the IPCC forecasts first released in November 2018? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change differentiated between 1½ degrees and two degrees in their impact on the ocean. It said that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees would likely be the difference between the survival of the Great Barrier Reef coral and its complete decline, according to the United Nations assessment of the climate science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report basically said that if global warming reaches two degrees, which is consistent with your target, more than 99 per cent of coral reefs were projected to decline this century, and indeed an annual bleaching event was expected on the Great Barrier Reef and the world's coral reefs. Minister, do you agree with the science and that characterisation by the IPCC?</p> <p class="speaker">Jenny McAllister</p><p>I think I have answered the question about our objectives. We are committed to the Paris Agreement. We are not only committed to reflecting those commitments in our own approach to policy here in Australia, but we are committed to participating in the global conversation to make sure that the world can reach those objectives because there is no disagreement between us on the questions you raise.</p><p>A warming world is dangerous for people and damaging to ecosystems. We have to do everything we can, as a country and as a globe, to contain warming. The Paris Agreement gives us the best chance of doing that. You will know better than I that the world has been through stops and starts in our ability to generate global momentum. It mattered a great deal to strike the agreement that was struck in Paris, and it matters, too, that at Glasgow the level of ambition globally was increased. It matters that businesses in Australia are being encouraged by investors globally to set their own targets. There is a momentum towards change and there is more that is going to need to be done.</p><p>But, Senator Whish-Wilson, I think where you are really going to is a question about our target. And I've answered that question already in response to questions from Senator Waters. We went to the election and sought a mandate, and we did it in a particular context. We did it in an environment where this country, under the government of those who now sit opposite, was unable to land an energy policy and unable to land a climate policy for nine years—a period in which almost nothing was done by the Commonwealth government on decarbonisation, where the heavy lifting was left to other people, to local communities, to businesses, to states and territories.</p><p>Going to an election and receiving a mandate, a wide mandate, to begin a process of change led by the Commonwealth is no small thing. You may think it's a small thing, and that's fine for the Greens. But for a party that seeks to be the party of government, taking a commitment to the election, having it scrutinised in the context of an election, having it debated with those opposite—who, as we've seen this morning, want to deny the science and want to dispute the objective of net zero emissions, as Senator Canavan did—means something. And it means something to walk into a room and to update your nationally determined contribution in the presence of AIG, the ACTU, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Clean Energy Council.</p><p>Building consensus, and bringing people with you, matters. We have a mandate for the target that is embedded in this legislation. We are pursuing the policies that we took to the election. That is actually more important than you appear to be willing to acknowledge.</p> <p class="speaker">Jonathon Duniam</p><p>UNIAM (—) (): Earlier on, at the very beginning of the committee stage, I did ask a question to the mover of this amendment around what modelling had been done with regard to the impact on retail power prices of inserting a 75 per cent reduction target. In response, at the end of her last contribution, the leader of the Australian Greens said she was flattered by the question, but she declined to answer. All I asked was what modelling, if any, existed. None has been provided, so I can only assume there is absolutely no regard for what impact this would have on household budgets. I presume that is the standard that we are now setting. We will just focus on one side of the equation and not the other.</p><p>I made the point earlier on, and I think it's not an unreasonable one, that in every decision we make we should balance the economy and the environment, which are two very fragile things. We would never make a decision purely on economic grounds, and nor should we ever. The days of those decisions are long gone, thankfully, but we should balance those decisions. The Greens do need to be held to account for such propositions. They aren't the party of government—and I hope they never will be. But when you come in here and try to alter legislation which, I believe, will have a very negative impact on something as simple as household power bills, you should answer the questions being asked about the amendment being put forward. I know that no modelling has been done. They refuse the answer the question. Let that be known publicly. So, I will then ask the minister: what modelling has been done on the impact on household power prices of your 43 per cent target?</p> <p class="speaker">Peter Whish-Wilson</p><p>Chair—</p> <p class="speaker">Linda Reynolds</p><p>We've had a question here, and I was giving the minister the opportunity to answer the question. But okay—Senator Whish-Wilson.</p> <p class="speaker">Peter Whish-Wilson</p><p>I also had a question before the minister, before Senator Duniam jumped up. There are a couple of things. Senator Duniam, the 75 per cent target is not controversial. It's been modelled by the IPCC. It's well recognised that that is what is necessary for us to meet the Paris targets. This goes directly to this debate that we're having here today and this amendment before the chair that was put by Senator Waters. Seventy-five per cent is not controversial. And I wonder whether you have modelled the impact on power prices of the climate emergency in the next 20 or 30 years, from extreme heatwaves and extreme cold and floods. I bet you haven't thought about the cost of inaction, have you? Anyway, I do digress.</p><p>I would like to get back to my question to the minister. Minister, we also have a mandate—the Australian Greens. We have the balance of power in the Senate because millions of Australians voted for real climate action. It's entirely legitimate for us to be in here fighting for our mandate, as it is for Senator Pocock, for the people who voted for us and for climate action and the one in three Australians who now vote outside the two major parties. It might seem like a small thing, 1½ to two degrees. But Minister, I'm confused about your response here today. Regarding your target of 43 per cent, regardless of whether you feel you have a mandate for that—that's not the issue before the chair—the question is: does 43 per cent equate to an ambition of limiting global warming to two degrees this century? It clearly does. Two degrees is different to 1½ degrees. In fact, all the things we've seen, especially in the past decade—the extreme weather events we've seen in Australia, the fires, the floods, back-to-back bleachings on the Great Barrier Reef, a bleaching during a La Nina year, record La Nina weather in the past nine months—are all happening on one degree of warming above preindustrial levels.</p><p>We are talking about trying to hold that to 1½ degrees. To put that in perspective, that is 50 per cent warmer than the planet is right now. Your bill here today will double the amount of warming captured in this atmosphere this century—a 100 per cent increase. An ambition of 43 per cent by 2030 means a 100 per cent increase in warming on this planet. So, the difference between 1½ and two degrees is so material.</p><p>My second question to you is, do you agree with the IPCC assessment that if we can't limit warming to 1½ degrees then we will see an annual bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef and the loss of 99 per cent of the world's corals probably in our lifetime? That's how serious this is. This is not climate ambition. This is not what I've been fighting for in this place for the past nine years, during the swamp and desert years of the LNP, as they sat back and watched the fire burn the house down. This is not the climate ambition that Australians voted for. So we need to be very clear here. Why, Minister, are you, for example, opening up 46,000 square kilometres of new ocean acreage to oil and gas companies to explore for the exact product that, when they burn it, is killing our oceans and warming our planet and condemning future generations on this planet? Can you please explain to me—and I'm asking this in relation to the second reading amendment that was moved last night in here by my colleague Senator Shoebridge—why you are opening up new areas of ocean to oil and gas exploration in a time of climate emergency while you are trying to limit emissions and Australia's emissions ambition?</p> <p class="speaker">Jenny McAllister</p><p>Thanks for your question and for what I'm going to take as a long preamble, Senator Whish-Wilson. You asked a specific question about acreage release, and I will answer that, perhaps by saying that we're fully committed to delivering on our 2030 and 2050 climate targets. It's why we're here today and it's why we're debating it.</p><p>The release of offshore areas for greenhouse gas storage and petroleum exploration is an annual process. While we are quickly scaling up renewables, other forms of energy, such as gas and oil, continue to play a part in our energy mix. Our approach is to reduce emissions while growing the economy and supporting key industries, and we are working with industry as a partner on our journey. We understand that gas is not a low-emissions fuel, but it does play an important part in helping to power communities by firming and peaking electricity and as a feedstock and source of heat for industry.</p><p>Equally, we understand the changing and reduced role that fossil fuels, like gas, will play in a decarbonising global economy. But the truth is that the best way to drive down emissions is with policy certainty, and that is the purpose of the legislation that is before us today.</p> <p class="speaker">Malcolm Roberts</p><p>Firstly, Minister, I agree with you that there is evidence of confusion besetting the coalition. It has been doing so since John Howard's prime ministership in the early 2000s, when he changed his mind on climate and later admitted that he was agnostic on the climate science.</p><p>Minister, I will be reading your papers yet again, but let me ask you—because you have still not answered—what is the specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on any climate factor? I would like to know that number. That is fundamental to the basis of any policy or legislation. No-one has provided it anywhere in the world. This is your bill. You need to provide it.</p><p>Secondly, I only need that specific, quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity. If you provide it and it's accurate, then I'll be silent. This issue long ago became a matter not of science or of the environment; it became a matter of integrity. We've got hypocritical parasitic billionaires doing a reverse Robin Hood, stealing via a highly regressive tax from the poor and the vulnerable—and you endorse that. We've got a Paris Agreement that is not an agreement. In the Paris Agreement they agreed that each country would do whatever it wanted to do. China said, 'Up yours; we're not doing anything!' India said the same. But Australia said, 'We will gut our economy.' And now you're going to ramp it up even further.</p><p>I'd like your view on this, Minister. Senator Whish-Wilson said that his party has a mandate. Mandates do not supplant science. Mandates based on positions that are based on lies are not mandates. Until you provide this Senate and the people of Australia with the specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on the climate, or any climate or weather factor, you will not have a mandate.</p><p>Senator Whish-Wilson raised the IPCC. Let's have a look at the creator of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.</p> <p class="speaker">Peter Whish-Wilson</p><p>Put your tinfoil hats on, everyone! Here it comes!</p><p>Honourable senators interjecting—</p><p>The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Order in the chamber! Senator Whish-Wilson, Senator Rennick: Senator Roberts will be heard in silence.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
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