The Climate Council has issued a pre-election call for all Australian political parties to acknowledge the climate crisis is driving worsening disasters, including the “megafloods” in Queensland and New South Wales.
The Australian Industry Group also declared on Monday that Australia’s former competitive advantage in carbon-intensive energy was “gone” and the country needed “coherent and efficient action” to build a new advantage in clean energy.
With an election due by May, the Climate Council said “too many leaders” were silent or absent on the climate crisis, and Australians were “paying a high price” for the lack of meaningful action.
“Climate change isn’t a footnote to the story of these floods. It is the story,” the Climate Council said in a statement on Monday.
The organisation – which brings together climate scientists, health, renewable energy and policy experts – issued a four-point call for all federal political parties and candidates.
That includes actively acknowledging “the destructive role that climate change is playing in driving worsening disasters including these megafloods”.
“Now is the time to talk about the Morrison government’s inadequate response to climate change, because burning coal, oil, and gas is supercharging extreme weather,” the Climate Council said.
“Those who argue otherwise want debate gagged because they are failing to step up on this issue.”
The calls come after the latest major assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found global warming caused by humans was causing dangerous and widespread disruption, with many effects expected to be more severe than predicted.
Prof Brendan Mackey, the coordinating lead author of an Australia-New Zealand chapter in the report and director of the Griffith University Climate Action Beacon, said last week: “One of the clear projections is an increase in the intensity of heavy rainfall events.”
The Climate Council said some politicians claimed the latest flooding disaster was something no one could have predicted. But “scientists have been warning us for decades that climate change will worsen all extreme weather in Australia”.
The Climate Council called on all federal political parties and candidates to outline concrete steps to prepare and equip emergency services and communities for inevitable climate-fuelled disasters.
It said parties and candidates should also “explain to the public how in the next term of federal parliament you plan to get national emissions plummeting by rapidly scaling up readily available renewable energy and building an economy that is free from fossil fuels”.
The organisation’s fourth call for Australian politicians is to ensure that towns, cities and communities are rebuilt in a way that takes into account climate change and makes them more resilient.
“Too many leaders are silent or absent,” the Climate Council said.
“It’s time to show leadership and step up to the most critical issue not just of our time, but all time. We have everything to lose, the time for action is now.”
The Australian Medical Association said last week the devastating floods in Queensland and NSW “added urgency for more to be done to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change”.
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said bluntly on Friday: “Let’s face it, it is climate change.”
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has acknowledged that advice from the Bureau of Meteorology indicated climate change was contributing to more regular and severe natural disasters. He said climate resilience must become “part of our everyday planning and preparations”.
“There’s obviously a lot of change that’s occurring, and that’s why we’ve got the policies that we have,” Morrison told 6PR on Friday. “But we’ve also got to deal with the practical issues of the here and now, and these impacts will continue.”
The Morrison government last year bowed to growing international and domestic pressure to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, but it refused to lift its 2030 target from the Abbott-era level of a 26% to 28% cut on 2005 levels.
Labor has committed to a 43% cut in emissions by 2030, while the Greens’ policy is a 75% reduction by 2030.
Australia should chase clean energy opportunities, group says
The chief executive of the Ai Group, Innes Willox, said roughly halving emissions by 2030 “would put Australia in the mainstream of advanced economies”. On Monday the business organisation published its own pre-election energy and climate policy statement.
Australia, it said, “needs to prepare the economy and communities for lower demand for emissions intensive exports, pursue all opportunities for clean economy exports, and get ready for carbon border adjustments in major economies”.
“The next three years could set Australia up to achieve a new clean energy advantage and a thriving and clean economy,” Willox said.
Willox said the closure of coal generators would accelerate, and the transition must be managed effectively to reduce “negative impacts on price, security and reliability”. He said fair treatment of affected workers, communities and supply chains was “essential so that they can thrive”.
The leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, is scheduled to visit Townsville on Monday to pledge to help coalminers to find new work in “another mining job, or a job in metals processing or manufacturing”.
Bandt will unveil a policy to create Green Metals Australia, a new body to support new and existing businesses that wish to accelerate the green manufacturing transition.
Of the $5.9bn to be invested, $700m would be made available as grants and the rest would be used for concessional finance and purchasing equity.
The policy continues the Greens’ push to win support from coal workers in a bid to win a second Senate seat in the Queensland.
“Coal is fuelling the climate crisis and making the floods in Queensland and New South Wales worse, but that’s not the workers’ fault,” Bandt said.
“Coal workers need to be supported, not demonised.”
