SYDNEY – Thursday 9 May 2024 – Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has today released the Federal Government’s ‘Future Gas Strategy’ – a betrayal of the Labor Government’s commitment to the Australian and Pacific communities to deliver urgent, accelerated climate action, Greenpeace Australia Pacific said today.
Comments attributable to Greenpeace Australia Pacific CEO David Ritter:
“Labor won the last Federal election on a promise of delivering the urgent, decisive climate action Australians want and deserve. Minister King’s announcement today is not only a betrayal of that commitment, it is a step closer to a more unsafe future for us all. This is no better than a smoker saying they are giving up, but in reality just swapping one brand of cigarettes for another.
“Minister King’s so-called strategy might as well have been written by the fossil fuel lobby; it is full of measures to ease the way for new gas, and conveniently light on measures to protect the threatened species that will be harmed in the process. It reads like a blank cheque for the industry to drill as they please, no matter the cost to our communities, and our climate.
“At a time when the science is crystal clear that any new fossil fuels are incompatible with a safe future, and global leaders—including Australia—have agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, this government is flogging fossil fuel furphies like “green gas” instead of proven and affordable renewable energy solutions.
“Minister King’s reckless strategy is completely at odds with the Labor government’s progress towards its own Net Zero Emissions targets. It will deliver profits for gas exporters in the short term while saddling Australians with worsening extreme weather, more costly energy, redundant gas infrastructure and a less competitive economy.
“This government must act in the best interest of the Australian people. For starters, we know that Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will soon decide whether to let Woodside develop the most polluting parts of the Burrup Hub—Browse and the Northwest Shelf extension. We call on Minister Plibersek not to approve these proposals.
“The light on the hill cannot be powered by gas. Minister King is wrong on the science, doing wrong to the people of Australia, and is undermining the Labor government’s standing, at home and abroad.
“The Australian people are watching closely, as are our Pacific family. We urge Ministers Plibersek, Bowen and King to ensure that this government’s legacy is not broken promises; but rather, a safe and thriving future for us all.”
Comments attributable to Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“For our people in the Pacific, today’s news is a dagger in the back. At the COP28 summit, Minister Bowen referred to the Pacific as ‘our brothers and sisters’. But to truly be a family, you need to stop making the same mistakes again and again. What the Pacific needs right now is a stop to all expansion of fossil fuels – that means gas as well.”
“While Minister King courts Japanese investment, Minister Bowen will need to meet Pacific Island communities face-to-face at future COP meetings: will he stand by and allow this to happen? This Government knows that Australia’s fraught relationship with the Pacific relies on real climate action, not rhetoric.
“If the Australian government is serious about supporting its Pacific vuvale, it must uphold its commitment made at COP28 in Dubai to transition away from all fossil fuels. You can’t transition away by opening new fossil projects. It makes no sense.”
—ENDS—
For more information or to arrange an interview:
- With David Ritter, please contact Vai Shah on 0452 290 082 (Sydney)
- General enquiries: Lisa Wills on 0456 206 021 (Melbourne)
King’s ‘Future Gas Strategy’ a betrayal of Australian and Pacific communities
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
related
Analysis: Lula presidency saved at least 20,000km2 of Brazilian Amazon since 2022
Why land-use emissions have fallen by a third this century – in six charts
Analysis: 84% of nations miss deadline to identify ‘nature-harming’ subsidies by 2025
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.
Gallery photos taken by Raeed Ali, Pacific Community Mobiliser at Greenpeace Australia Pacific