Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will push for a global effort to prevent any new extinctions of wildlife by 2030, warning the world is heading down an “unsustainable” path unless a major international agreement is reached. Plibersek, who will travel to Montreal on Wednesday for the COP15 biodiversity summit, will also push for all countries to adopt a target of protecting 30 percent of their land and 30 percent of their seas by 2030 through the creation of marine reserves, national parks, Indigenous Protected Areas and other protected areas.
Banks and other big businesses will be forced to come clean with the public about what they are doing to cut emissions under plans put forward by the Albanese government. The government is also looking for ways to crack down on “greenwashing” – or when businesses try to win over consumers by overhyping their environmental practices. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, will say in a speech in Sydney on Monday that Australian firms “need to make credible disclosures to remain competitive in global capital markets”.
More than a dozen climate activists are facing possible jail time over protests in Sydney’s CBD this year after being charged under the same controversial laws that led to Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco being handed a 15-month prison sentence. Court documents seen by the Guardian show a string of activists linked to climate group Blockade Australia have been charged under the laws, which introduced a two-year jail sentence for protests that block major roads, bridges or tunnels in New South Wales.
Plibersek in push to halt extinctions, but defends reef stance
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will push for a global effort to prevent any new extinctions of wildlife by 2030, warning the world is heading down an “unsustainable” path unless a major international agreement is reached. Plibersek, who will travel to Montreal on Wednesday for the COP15 biodiversity summit, will also push for all countries to adopt a target of protecting 30 percent of their land and 30 percent of their seas by 2030 through the creation of marine reserves, national parks, Indigenous Protected Areas and other protected areas.
Albanese government looking at laws to force big business to disclose climate efforts
Banks and other big businesses will be forced to come clean with the public about what they are doing to cut emissions under plans put forward by the Albanese government. The government is also looking for ways to crack down on “greenwashing” – or when businesses try to win over consumers by overhyping their environmental practices. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, will say in a speech in Sydney on Monday that Australian firms “need to make credible disclosures to remain competitive in global capital markets”.
At least a dozen climate activists face jail time under NSW laws used to lock up Violet Coco
More than a dozen climate activists are facing possible jail time over protests in Sydney’s CBD this year after being charged under the same controversial laws that led to Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco being handed a 15-month prison sentence. Court documents seen by the Guardian show a string of activists linked to climate group Blockade Australia have been charged under the laws, which introduced a two-year jail sentence for protests that block major roads, bridges or tunnels in New South Wales.
$1.5bn energy price relief package for Australians including caps on coal and gas
Canberra and the states have agreed to cap coal and gas prices, and provide additional rebates for Australians on low and middle incomes, as part of a $1.5bn intervention that will shave hundreds of dollars off power bills. After a national cabinet meeting on Friday, governments have agreed to cap gas prices temporarily at $12 per gigajoule and cap coal prices at $125 per tonne. Parliament will be recalled next week to implement the change. Officials said on Friday consumers would have been $230 worse off without the price caps.
Coalition must listen ‘carefully to Pacific island nations’ says Simon Birmingham ahead of bipartisan tour
Opposition foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, has conceded the Coalition must listen “carefully to Pacific island nations” as part of what needs to be a “rock solid”, bipartisan commitment to climate funding for the region.
Greens leader Adam Bandt says his party will oppose any plan to compensate coal companies under plan to cap prices
The Greens will oppose any compensation for coal companies affected by proposed price caps under a national plan aimed at curbing skyrocketing energy prices.
Australia’s mountain mist frog declared extinct as red list reveals scale of biodiversity crisis
The mountain mist frog, a species once found across two-thirds of Australia’s wet tropics, has been declared extinct on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list.
Fracking company New Standard Energy goes into liquidation leaving large Kimberley rehabilitation bill
An embattled energy company in WA's Kimberley region has gone into liquidation, ending a 10-year decline and leaving significant questions over who will pay their rehabilitation and decommissioning costs. Professor Kingsley Dixon, director of Curtin University's Centre for Mine Site Restoration, said just rehabilitating certain species at the fracking site would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. "If we find, for example, the dominant grass species is spinifex, that it's one where we can't get the seed or the seed has complex dormancy, then that suddenly becomes a $100,000 additional problem," he said.
Violet Coco is not alone: the climate activists facing jail
As protesters use more provocative tactics, state governments are responding with heavy-handed laws to stop them.
Labor takes aim at gas industry over trying to preserve ‘big profits’ during Ukraine war
The federal energy minister has taken aim at the gas industry, saying it is only complaining about the new price cap because its members wanted to preserve “the big profits they were making while the war in Ukraine is going on”. With the oil and gas industry now demanding an urgent meeting with the government, Chris Bowen said on Sunday the intervention was “a decisive package for difficult times” and accused the federal opposition of copying “the gas companies’ talking points”.