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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Australia has a new, stronger emissions reduction target.

But we are also one of the world’s biggest exporters of fossil fuels, and there’s no plan from the government to reduce that.

That’s because Australian coal and gas which is burned overseas isn’t counted in our emissions. But could that change? And will environment minister Tanya Plibersek begin to consider those emissions and the damage that they cause to our climate when new projects are approved?

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Tom Morton, on whether Australia is ready to take responsibility for the coal and gas that we sell.

It’s Wednesday, December 7.

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RUBY:

So, Tom, we are hearing from a lot of different organisations including the International Energy Agency, the UN secretary general, the IPCC, they all say that if we want any chance of being able to meet our emissions reductions targets, then we can't have any new coal or gas projects in Australia, despite that the Labor Government is approving new exploration sites right now. So to begin with, can you tell me about what’s being approved? What projects are going ahead at this point?

TOM:

Yeah, well, look. That's right, Ruby. There's about a hundred or a bit more than 100 fossil fuel projects currently in the pipeline at the moment awaiting approval.

The Resources Minister, Madeleine King, has approved ten news sites for offshore oil and gas exploration.

And she's also been very strong publicly in her support for the Scarborough Gas Project in Western Australia, which is an enormous project which will produce an enormous amount of emissions if it goes ahead.

Archival tape -- Madeleine King:

“If Woodside are prepared and they are prepared and have guaranteed the state Government to implement the appropriate offsets for the development of the Scarborough gas field we support that because it absolutely fits within our ambitions for net zero emissions by 2050 as well.”

TOM:

We've also seen just last Wednesday the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reiterate the Government's support for the Narrabri Gas Project in New South Wales.

Archival tape -- Anthony Albanese:

“Well, we've said that we support the Narrabri project and that's being worked through though with the environmental approvals.”

TOM:

And all of these projects at some point are going to land on the doorstep of the Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek for final approval if they trigger the relevant provisions of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, better known as the EPBC Act. So there's going to be more and more pressure on Tanya Plibersek as the final decision maker in a number of these cases to really start making some clear decisions about whether or not Australia should be approving new fossil fuel projects for export.

RUBY:

Yeah, and there are challenges underway to the approval process for many of these projects so let’s talk a bit about that. There’s one case in particular that I know you’ve been looking at - which is being run by this small environmental group in Queensland, but it sounds like it could have some big implications. So can you tell me about it?

TOM:

Yes. Well, Ruby, I got very interested in an intervention that's being run by the Environment Council of Central Queensland
That's a group that has been around for quite a long time. Christine Carlisle, who's the spokesperson from the group describes herself as an ordinary person. She used to be a nurse and worked in accident and emergency. She's gone from there, as she describes it, to working on the biggest emergency of all, the climate emergency.

Now what the Environmental Council of Central Queensland is doing focuses on Australia’s so-called Scope 3 emissions, the emissions from Australia's fossil fuel exports.

But the crucial issue has always been that our fossil fuel exporters and state governments, federal governments have argued, well, we're not actually responsible for those emissions that happen when our coal, oil or gas is burnt overseas. That's a matter for the countries that burn them. We only have to consider their impacts in Australia.

Now what the Environmental Council of Central Queensland is doing is asking the Minister, Tanya Plibersek, to reconsider some decisions made by previous ministers about 18 coal and gas projects … like the North West Shelf Extension, like another one of Clive Palmer's proposed coal mines, the Alpha mine in the Galilee Basin. And they're saying that there's now substantial information available to the Minister, Tanya Plibersek, which wasn't available to previous ministers, which should cause her to look at the harm that's caused by Australia's coal and gas exports, the harm that may, cause to the Australian environment.

RUBY:

Right, so what is that substantial information, new information, that this group is saying is now available to the Environment Minister, and should trigger a reconsideration of these 18 coal and gas projects?

TOM:

So what this intervention is asking her to do is to look at essentially the vast body of the latest climate science that's contained in the latest reports from the IPCC.

And then she has to decide whether reviewing the decisions is warranted.

So ultimately what the Environment Council of Central Queensland is saying is that there are already measurable impacts from climate change on matters of national environmental significance, such as the Great Barrier Reef.

They don't have to prove, you know, to 100% certainty that the emissions from Australia's fossil fuel exports are impacting the Barrier Reef and other matters of national environmental significance. They have to show that there's a real as opposed to a remote chance that that link is there between our fossil fuel exports, their contribution to increased global warming both now and in the future, and harms to the Australian environment.

We know very clearly that unless we act very, very quickly, irreversible damage to the reef will be done and it possibly is already being done.

I don't know how many reports that we have had, every one from Professor Terry Hughes, who has been one of the leading scientific authorities on the reef for decades now, right through to this latest report saying that in their view, the reef's status as a World Heritage property was in danger.

The science is there And really what all of these legal matters that I've been talking about, what they revolve around is saying, Minister, you need to listen to the science.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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Archival tape -- Sky News:

“The United Nations has recommended the Great Barrier Reef be listed as a World Heritage site in danger.”

Archival tape -- ABC News:

“Claiming Australia has failed to adequately address climate change and other key threats.”

Archival tape -- ABC News:

“But it also warns action to limit global temperature rises to within one and a half degrees is critical.”

RUBY:

Tom, we’re talking about a legal intervention trying to force Tanya Plibersek to consider the impacts of exported coal and gas on some of our most threatened environments - so places like the Great Barrier Reef - which she, as Minister for Environment, has a legal duty of care over. So how has she responded to the threat to the Great Barrier Reef, what has she been saying?

TOM:

Well, Tanya Plibersek made some comments last week which I think were very interesting.

Archival tape -- Tanya Plibersek:

“I think will very clearly make the point to UNESCO that there is no need to single the Great Barrier Reef out in this way.”

TOM:

She said that the government contested the fact that the reef should be put on the endangered list.

She said that report was done before the last federal election and that consequently the government is doing enough to address the damage to the reef that's been caused by climate change.

Archival tape -- Tanya Plibersek:

“The reason that the UNESCO's in the past has singled out places at risk is because they wanted to see greater government investment or greater government action. And since the change of government, both of those things have happened.”

TOM:

And she also said something pretty curious in a way, she said...

Archival tape -- Tanya Plibersek:

“It's actually undeniable that climate change is a risk to every reef globally, and we need to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. If we're going to protect not just the Great Barrier Reef, but all reefs.”

TOM:

In a way, she sort of inadvertently admitted that, yes, this is a global problem. You know, the Great Barrier Reef is not just any coral reef. It's not for nothing that it has a World Heritage listing and that the ministers required to protect it under the act. That's one of the matters of national environmental significance, which triggers her responsibilities as minister.
But in a way, by saying, well, you know, coral reefs are being affected by global heating, she's acknowledging that we can't cordon off the emissions that Australia's fossil fuel exports cause overseas from their impact on the Australian environment. So in a way, I think it's kind of bounced back on her a bit.

RUBY:

Okay. So given that, how does it seem likely to you that Tanya Plibersek is going to respond to the legal action that we've been talking about, which is really trying to link what's happening in the Great Barrier Reef to emissions from Australian fossil fuel exports?

TOM:

Well look…I think Tanya Plibersek is in a very difficult position. She's under intense pressure. The Government's under intense pressure on the one hand from the fossil fuel lobby, especially in the last few weeks and months from the gas lobby. And we're certainly seeing at the moment a very concerted campaign by the gas lobby to try and argue against any windfall tax, to try and argue against any sort of intervention in the gas market, etc., etc.. And I'm sure that Plibersek well understands the science behind this application… and I'm sure that she will understand that the science is telling her overwhelmingly that Australia should not be and she should not be approving any more fossil fuel projects for export. But she's now between that clear scientific evidence and the pressure from the fossil fuel lobby. Finally, though, I think in a sense she has the wind of the last election behind her. There was a poll published just last week, the Climate Compass poll, showing that something like 57% of people who gave their votes to independents at the last election did so because of climate change. That was the number one reason and it was the number two reason for people giving their vote to Labor. So, you know, the Government's shown that it's prepared to face down pressure about its industrial relations legislation recently. Let's hope that it's prepared to face down the pressure and that the minister is prepared to face down the pressure from the fossil fuel lobby and possibly see this legal intervention from the Environment Council of Central Queensland as an opportunity to reset the whole framework around our fossil fuel exports.

RUBY:

So does it seem to you then that the Australian Government is going to be forced one way or another to really reckon with the damage that's done by Australian fossil fuels burned in other countries? Whether that is from this legal action or it's from pressure from the public or from the crossbench. This is a problem that the Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is going to have to eventually face up to, or I suppose, risk squandering the goodwill that the Government's currently enjoying.

TOM:

Yeah, I think it's inevitable and it's inevitable for another important reason too, which is the very strong pressure that's being put on fossil fuel companies now by what you might want to call the global divestment and investment movement. Got organisations, for example, in Australia like the Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, which is running some very important legal challenges at the moment to fossil fuel companies and also really putting investment pressure on fossil fuel companies, to move away from what at the moment is their core business and to decarbonise their business. So I think what you can see is that there's pressure coming from the investment divestment movement. There's certainly going to be political pressure from the Greens and the Independents and certainly more and more legal pressure on the Minister to reconsider the legal basis or the legal framework around approvals for fossil fuel projects.

Even though, you know, we're not seeing the sort of big climate demos that we saw in 2019 with School Strike for Climate and so on, it's pretty clear that public sentiment is very strongly for climate action. And ultimately that has to involve Australia creating a pathway out of exporting fossil fuels.

RUBY:

Tom, thank you so much for your time.

TOM:

Pleasure to be here.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

The Reserve Bank has once again raised its official cash rate target – this time by 0.25 to 3.1 per cent, its highest level in ten years.

This is the eighth consecutive rate rise, the central bank’s response to the rampant global inflation. In May the cash rate was just 0.1 per cent.

And the war in Ukraine has escalated, after Ukraine used two unmanned drones to attack military bases deep inside Russia.

The drone strikes, hundreds of miles inside Russia’s borders, targeted airfields that support Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine.

Security analysts have called the strike Ukraine’s most brazen attack of the nine-month-long war.

I’m Ruby Jones, see you next week.

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