Climate change has been a top priority for the Greens for many years and the party has a comprehensive policy platform that would see Australia take the only globally responsible course of action and start rebuilding our society and economy around the exciting vision of a zero emissions world.

While governments and industry are tinkering around the edges and talking about small, incremental action to reduce emissions, our climate is changing faster than most scientists had predicted and greenhouse emissions are increasing faster than the IPCC's worst scenarios. If the globe warms more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels the impacts will be too severe and the risks of runaway climate change too great. We only have a few years to turn around global emissions or 2°C warming will be locked in.

The Greens are the only political party in Australia to recognise that the time for incremental action is long past and we now need transformative policies to turn Australia from one of the world's worst polluters into a zero emissions economy of the future. Urgent action must start now. The Greens recognise that, if we get that action right, rolling out energy efficiency upgrades and switching to renewable energy, moving to fuel efficient and electric cars, with more car-pooling, redesigning our cities around mass transit hubs, cycleways and walking paths, and rethinking our agriculture and forestry, we can seize tremendous opportunities to make Australia a better, fairer, healthier and happier place to live.