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RUBY:

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

Protecting Australia’s environment is a matter of urgency, or at least that's what the Albanese government campaigned on two and a half years ago.

But now, with environmental legislation stalling in the Senate, and a series of announcements lacking detail, there’s a sense that the government’s priorities have shifted.

Today, Director of the Australia Institute’s Climate and Energy program Polly Hemming, on the rhetoric of “nature positivity” and the inaction it hides.

It’s Tuesday, October 8.

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RUBY:

Polly, thank you for joining me. To start, could you paint a picture of what the Albanese government has promised when it comes to protecting the environment?

POLLY:

So after the 2022 election, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek gave an address to the National Press Club where she released the State of the Environment Report, which had been delayed by the previous government.

Audio Excerpt - Tanya Plibersek:

“Today, as part of my statutory duty as minister, I am publicly releasing the 2021 State of the Environment Report. It's one of the most important documents in environmental science.”

POLLY:

And it basically laid bare just how serious the state of Australia's environmental decline is.

Audio Excerpt - Tanya Plibersek:

“We deserve to know that Australia has lost more mammal species to extinction than any other continent. We deserve to know that threatened communities have grown by 20% in the last five years, with places literally burned into endangerment by catastrophic fires.”

POLLY:

She really indicated that this was going to be a new regime and that the environment would be front and centre.

Audio Excerpt - Tanya Plibersek:

“In 2022, Australians voted for the environment. They voted for action on climate change.”

POLLY:

The Albanese Government committed to no new extinctions. They said that they would conserve 30% of terrestrial and marine environments by 2030.

But really the centrepiece, and what the Minister keeps coming back to and what she really signalled in her first speech to the Press Club, was about fixing broken laws that had been letting everyone down, letting the environment down.

Audio Excerpt - Tanya Plibersek:

“The previous government was told loud and clear that Australian environmental laws were not working, and they did nothing to fix that. Almost two years ago, the Morrison government received an official review into the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act…”

POLLY:

These laws that she's referring to, they're always referred to as nature laws. It's a big body of legislation, that's about 1000 pages long, that is called the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. And that's what she means by nature laws.

And they, they said they would have, kind of, draft nature reform laws by the end of 2023 and a proposal for an independent Environmental Protection Authority.

What that translated into, I think, in about December 2022 was the government's Nature Positive Plan. Literally, that's the title.

RUBY:

Right, so this term “nature positive”, where does it come from?

POLLY:

It's been compared to the term net zero. There is a global initiative that came up with an official definition of nature positive.

Audio Excerpt - Canadian Minister:

“I'm extremely pleased to share that we've achieved a Montreal moment for nature. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is a major win for our planet and for all of humanity.”

POLLY:

And it's meant to be the equivalent of the 1.5 degrees goal in the Paris Agreement that exists for climate.

Audio Excerpt - Canadian Minister:

“And I think the next step for many of our countries, certainly including mine in Canada, is to develop legislation to enshrine the targets that we have agreed to here in Montreal.”

POLLY:

In December 2022, this nature positive ambition was codified in the global biodiversity framework, which was basically meant to commit the world to halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. So the definition itself, like the technical definition, is halt and reverse nature lost by 2030 on a 2020 baseline and achieve full recovery by 2050.

Audio Excerpt - Tanya Plibersek:

“Our government is getting on with our goal of delivering a nature positive Australia. A nature positive Australia which means…”

POLLY:

The Australian Government has adopted the terminology of nature positive. They've also included it in legislation. However, they haven't used that technical global definition that was codified in the biodiversity framework.

And it just says that regard has to be had about whether there is improvement and there's no timeline. Basically these things are going to be determined by government agencies. So you can see already there's a lot of wiggle room there. It's treated a bit like interpretive dance by government and industry. You know it's, it's more a vibe or a feeling. And as a result, the Australian Government's definition of nature positive has, I guess, been scrutinised and criticised by a number of scientists working in this area.

RUBY:

So it sounds like the phrase ‘nature positive’ is really being used as branding and has become removed from its actual definition. But what does that mean for the environment, for actual outcomes?

POLLY:

Amid all these terms, amid all the talking, the big promises, the handwringing about the environment, at no point has the Australian Government ever said we will stop doing harm. They've never said we will stop subsidising harm. So it's fine to talk about this idea of nature positive but, I mean if koalas are being killed because their habitat is being destroyed, the way to save them seems pretty obvious. You stop destroying their habitat.

Governments have made announcements about not doing harm before. In fact, Labor governments stopped the Franklin River from being dammed. Labor governments halted mining exploitation in Antarctica. They stopped logging in the Daintree. They protected the Tasmanian wilderness.

Instead of our leaders saying, and this is state and federal leaders, instead of them saying we are going to stop harm from happening, there's this assembly line of constant announcements. That are not necessarily bad, but they're largely about making it look like something is happening rather than doing anything meaningful and the nature positive rhetoric is a central part of that.

RUBY:

Coming up after the break, the push for a federal body to protect the environment and why it’s stalled.

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RUBY:

Polly, the federal government has adopted this language around being, quote, “nature positive” and it’s going hard. This week it’s hosting what's being billed as the first ever Global Nature Positive Summit. So what should we expect?

POLLY:

So I think we've probably established that Australia's environment is in a pretty bad way according to the Government's own State of the Environment Report. I think the term is that it is officially poor and deteriorating. Our ecosystems are collapsing for a number of reasons: climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution. We've got one of the worst extinction rates in the world. So as part of its efforts to address this situation, the Australian Government announced last year that Australia would be hosting the world's first Global Nature Positive Summit.

Audio Excerpt - Tanya Plibersek:

“Hi everyone, I'm so excited that Australia’s hosting the world's first Global Major Positive Summit. The summit will bring together leaders and experts to get agreement on the next steps to turbocharge investment and reporting on nature. The Australian Government is doing more than ever to make our….”

POLLY:

And this seems like a pretty good thing. You know, when you think about nature or the environment, probably you think a summit like this would feature scientists, ecologists, conservationists, policymakers, academics, traditional owners. If you look at the agenda of the summit, it's largely a financial event. And I really want to read you one of the program sessions because it just gets to a really important point I want to make.

So there's a session called Unlocking the Future of Biodiversity Markets. And this session is going to delve into emerging opportunities for the convergence and interoperability of carbon and biodiversity markets. The session will highlight the role of markets as a key mechanism to unlock new sources of finance to achieve local and global nature positive goals. And for the absence of any doubt, I just want to reassure everyone listening who wonders what any of this means, it doesn't mean anything.

This is the worst kind of financial jargon, and it kind of feeds into that really vague terminology around the environment. We're now hearing about nature based solutions, natural capital, green finance, climate finance, and that's kind of what this whole summit is about.

It's not about how do we stop doing harm? It’s this idea that, while it's very sad that our ecosystems are collapsing, the government can't afford to protect or restore the environment and so the private sector needs to step in. And what is being proposed, and what the basis of this summit is, is that environmental markets and financial instruments are the means by which the private sector will want to voluntarily invest in the protection of the environment because there is some kind of profit to be made.

RUBY:

Okay, so presumably the federal government would like to be able to announce that there is some movement in this space, that it has some sort of nature positive news to share. Do you think there will be anything?

POLLY:

So if I take that question literally and we think about the term nature positive. Positive implies that things are getting better.

Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. Land clearing is increasing, Native forest logging is still happening. The Maugean Skate is on the brink of extinction. So I don't even know if we're heading towards nature neutral here, let alone nature positive.

So we're one of the richest countries in the world. If the government was actually committed to this concept of nature positive, what we would be hearing from Minister Plibersek at the Nature Positive Summit would be, first, announcements about ending harm. You can't be nature positive until you stop being nature negative. So an end to native forest logging, an end to subsidising fossil fuels, an end to new fossil fuel projects. And then you would start on the positive stuff, so there would be announcements about how to build on that.

We're going to give money to farmers to help manage their lands. We're going to give our First Nations people the resources to live on and care for their land with no strings attached. We're going to dedicate the resources to the protection and restoration of the environment as if our lives depended on it, because our lives do depend on it.

And I think if none of that is in her speech, if there are no announcements like that at the nature positive summit, then it's going to be more buzzwords and more delay.

RUBY:

But Polly, there are laws being put together right now aren’t there? Environmental laws are being debated in the senate, that would put in place a federal body to protect the environment, a federal EPA. So what difference would that make?

POLLY:

I think it's really important to clarify two things. That while these environment laws, they’re kind of framed as this enormous Chimera of all the things that will protect our ecosystem, they're actually not. They’re development laws and they're designed to protect the environment in that context only. So the EPA would never be a silver bullet for protecting the environment from all bad things that are happening.

So yes, these things are really important. These laws have a specific purpose but the way they're sold, under the auspice of nature laws, is that they are everything that is required in Australia to protect the environment and only once these laws are reformed can the environment be protected. Until then, the Government's hands are basically tied.

While the nature laws are being delayed, there are over 20 gas and coal projects waiting for approval that can now be approved under the old regime. And Minister Plibersek can say, well guys, I didn't really want to do this, but I have no choice because we don't have the right nature laws in place. So it really suits a government who is supportive of fossil fuel expansion to blame these broken laws.

RUBY:

Polly, thank you so much for your time.

POLLY:

Thanks Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

The New South Wales government is investigating a coal mine in greater Sydney after reports the mine’s operation caused damage to a culturally significant piece of artwork.

Local Indigenous leaders have likened the damage to Rio Tinto’s blasting of a sacred cave in Juukan Gorge, claiming the owners of the coal mine “are trying to cover it up in the same way”.

And, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says Australia will not apologise for its comments condemning Iran’s recent missile attacks on Israel.

Last week Iran launched a direct attack against Israel in response to Israel’s dual assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah.

DFAT’s statement comes after the Australian Ambassador to Iran was summoned to a meeting with the Iranian foreign ministry due to, what it called, Australia’s “repeated bias” commentary on Iran’s actions against Israel.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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