The Morrison/McCormack government isn’t just lying about New Zealand’s climate plan, it has cost farmers over $12 billion by repealing the carbon price and exposed them to new carbon tariffs, said Greens Leader, Adam Bandt. 
 

Responding to the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement about the climate crisis that "We are not worried, or I’m certainly not worried, about what might happen in 30 years’ time”, Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP said today that the Deputy Prime Minister’s recklessness is a threat to the lives of Australia’s children. Mr Bandt also warned that his attempts to roadblock action to reduce emissions would also hurt regional Australia.

“Michael McCormack is putting coal corporations ahead of farmers and threatening the lives of Australia’s children,” Mr Bandt said.

This morning the people's climate rally came to the lawns of Parliament House. They came to the people's house today to make sure that politicians are confronted with the reality of the climate crisis at the start of the parliamentary year, because they know that two centuries of colonisation have undone the millennia of management and care of country by First Nations people.

The Hunter Valley needs a new coal-fired power station like it needs a hole in the head. I have spent a lot of time in the Hunter Valley, and the people there know that coal has no future. They know how damaging coal is for the climate. They know how harmful coaldust is for them, their families and their children. They know that there is no future in coal, that it is a collapsing industry. The irrational exuberance of Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the coalition to keep pushing coal is criminal.

The Greens have slammed the Liberals and Labor for today throwing $217 million in road funding to enable the Beetaloo Basin gas project, saying the funding would worsen the climate crisis and result in a stranded asset as our trading partners abandon gas. 

"The Coalition and NT Labor are in lock step in their plan to light the fuse on the Beetaloo climate bomb,” Acting Greens Leader Nick McKim said. 

"If your plan for the future includes fracking a massive gas mine for 70 years, there's no mincing words - you're a climate denialist.

The Future Fund must divest the $3 million it has put into a railway for the climate-destroying Adani coal mine, the Greens say.

Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said.

"This is public money and should be invested for the public good."

"Having already ruled out investing in tobacco products, the Future Fund must urgently get out of fossil fuels."

"This is a bad investment financially, morally and environmentally. To use public funds to cook the planet is an extraordinary error of judgement."

Greens Leader, Adam Bandt, says Australia is now the only OECD country to rule out raising its 2030 emissions target, as the Morrison government’s climate policy doesn’t just put lives at risk but damages Australia’s international standing and reputation too. 

With the events of the weekend and the UN Climate Ambition Summit, 31 of the 37 members of the OECD have now committed to raising their 2030 climate ambition. Of the six remaining, only Australia has ruled out raising its 2030 target.

Last night’s global Climate Ambition Summit confirmed Australia’s status as the world’s climate reject. While Scott Morrison was barred from the Summit, world leaders lined up to announce ambitious new 2030 targets and action.

The Europe Union upped their 2030 target to 55% and the UK to 68%. Japan announced they would raise their targets next year and Canada released modelling showing they would beat their 2030 target.