Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Protecting Australia's environment is a matter of urgency, or at
Speaker 1: least that's what the Albaneze government campaigned on two and
Speaker 1: a half years ago. But now with environmental legislation stalling
Speaker 1: in the Senate and a series of announcements lacking detail,
Speaker 1: there's a sense that the government's priorities have shifted. Today
Speaker 1: Director of the Australia Institute's Climate and Energy Program, Polly
Speaker 1: Hemming on the rhetoric of nature positivity and the inaction
Speaker 1: at hides. It's Tuesday, October eighth. Polly, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining me. Start. Could you paint a picture of what
Speaker 1: the Albnezy government has promised when it comes to protecting
Speaker 1: the environment.
Speaker 2: So after the twenty twenty two election, Environment Minister Tanya
Speaker 2: Plebisek gave an address to the National Press Club where
Speaker 2: she released the State of the Environment Report, which had
Speaker 2: been delayed by the previous government.
Speaker 3: Today, as part of my statutory duty as Minister, i
Speaker 3: am publicly releasing the twenty twenty one State of the
Speaker 3: Environment Report. It's one of the most important documents in
Speaker 3: environmental science.
Speaker 2: And it basically laid bare just how serious the state
Speaker 2: of Australia's environmental decline is.
Speaker 3: We deserve to know that Australia has lost more mammal
Speaker 3: species to extinction than any other continent. We deserve to
Speaker 3: know that threatened communities have grown by twenty percent in
Speaker 3: the last five years, with places literally burned into endangerment
Speaker 3: by catastrophic fires.
Speaker 2: She really indicated that this was going to be a
Speaker 2: new regime and that the environment would be front and center.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two, Australians voted for the environment, They
Speaker 3: voted for action on climate change.
Speaker 2: The Albanizi government committed to no new extinctions. They said
Speaker 2: they would conserve thirty percent of terrestrial and marine environments
Speaker 2: by twenty thirty. But really the centerpiece and what the
Speaker 2: minister keeps coming back to, and what she really signaled
Speaker 2: in her first speech to the Press club, was about
Speaker 2: fixing broken laws that had been letting everyone down, letting
Speaker 2: the environment down.
Speaker 3: The previous government was told loud and clear that Australian
Speaker 3: environmental laws were not working and they did nothing to
Speaker 3: fix that. Almost two years ago, the Morrison government received
Speaker 3: an official review into the environmental protection and biodiverse the
Speaker 3: Conservation Act.
Speaker 2: These laws that she's referring to, they're always referred to
Speaker 2: as nature laws. It's a big body of legislation that's
Speaker 2: about one thousand pages long that is called the Environmental
Speaker 2: Protection and Bidiversity Conservation Act. And that's what she means
Speaker 2: by nature laws. And they said they would have kind
Speaker 2: of draft nature reform laws by the end of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three and proposal for an independent Environmental protection Authority.
Speaker 2: What that translated into, I think in about December twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two was the government's Nature Positive Plan. Literally that's
Speaker 2: the title.
Speaker 1: Right, So this term nature positive, where does it come from?
Speaker 2: It's been compared to the term net zero. There is
Speaker 2: a global initiative that came up with an official definition
Speaker 2: of nature positive.
Speaker 4: I'm extremely pleased to share that we've achieved a Montreal
Speaker 4: moment for nature. De kun mean Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
Speaker 4: is a major win for our planet and for all
Speaker 4: of humanity.
Speaker 2: And it's meant to be the equivalent of the one
Speaker 2: point five degrees goal in the Paris Agreement that exists
Speaker 2: for climate ambition.
Speaker 4: And I think the next step for many of our countries,
Speaker 4: certainly including Miami in Canada is to develop legislation to
Speaker 4: enshrine the targets that we've agreed to here in Montreal as.
Speaker 2: Part of the In December twenty twenty two, this Nature
Speaker 2: Positive ambition was codified in the Global Biodiversity Framework, which
Speaker 2: was basically meant to commit the world to halting and
Speaker 2: reversing biodiversity loss by twenty thirty. So the definition itself,
Speaker 2: like the technical definition, is halt and reverse nature loss
Speaker 2: by twenty thirty on a twenty twenty baseline and achieve
Speaker 2: full recovery by twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: Our government is getting on with our goal of delivering
Speaker 3: a nature positive Australia, anature positive Australia, which means.
Speaker 2: The Australian government has adopted the terminology of nature positive.
Speaker 2: They've also included it in legislation. However, they haven't used
Speaker 2: that technical global definition that was codified in the Biodiversity Framework,
Speaker 2: and it just says that regard has to be had
Speaker 2: about whether there's improvement and there's no timeline. Basically, these
Speaker 2: things are going to be determined by government agencies. So
Speaker 2: you can see already there's a lot of wiggle room there.
Speaker 2: It's treated a bit like interpretive dance by government and industry.
Speaker 2: You know, it's more a vibe or a feeling. And
Speaker 2: as a result, the Australian government's definition of nature positive
Speaker 2: has I guess been scrutinized and criticized by a number
Speaker 2: of scientists working in this area.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the phrase nature positive is really
Speaker 1: being used as branding and has become removed from its
Speaker 1: actual definition. But what does that mean for the environment,
Speaker 1: for actual outcomes?
Speaker 2: Amid all these terms, amid all the talking, big promises,
Speaker 2: handringing about the environment, at no point as the Australian
Speaker 2: government ever said we will stop doing harm. They've never
Speaker 2: said we will stop subsidizing harm. So it's fine to
Speaker 2: talk about this idea of nature positive. But I mean,
Speaker 2: if Kohalas are being killed because their habitat is being destroyed,
Speaker 2: the way to save them seems pretty obvious. You stop
Speaker 2: destroying their habitat. Governments have made announcements about not doing
Speaker 2: harm before. In fact, labor governments stopped the Franklin River
Speaker 2: from being dam Labor governments halted mining exploitation in Antarctica.
Speaker 2: They stopped logging in the Dane Tree, They protected the
Speaker 2: Tasmanian wilderness. Instead of our leaders saying and this is
Speaker 2: state and federal leaders instead of them saying we are
Speaker 2: going to stop harm from happening. There's this assembly line
Speaker 2: of constant announcements that are not necessarily bad, but they're
Speaker 2: largely about making it look like something is happening rather
Speaker 2: than doing anything meaningful. And the nature positive retric is
Speaker 2: a central part of that.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, the push for a federal
Speaker 1: body to protect the environment and why it's stalled. Federal
Speaker 1: government has adopted this language around being quote nature positive,
Speaker 1: and it's going hard. This week it's hosting what's been
Speaker 1: billed as the first ever global Nature Positive Summit. So
Speaker 1: what should we expect?
Speaker 2: So, I think we've probably established that Australia's environment is
Speaker 2: in a pretty bad way, according to the government's own
Speaker 2: State of the Environment would report. I think the term
Speaker 2: is that it is officially poor and deteriorating. Ecosystems are
Speaker 2: collapsing for a number of reasons, climate change, habitat loss,
Speaker 2: invasive species, pollution. We've got one of the worst extinction
Speaker 2: rates in the world. So as part of its efforts
Speaker 2: to address this situation, the Australian government announced last year
Speaker 2: that Australia would be hosting the world's first global Nature
Speaker 2: Positive Summit.
Speaker 3: Hi, everyone, I'm so excited that Australia is hosting the
Speaker 3: world's first global Nature Positive Summit.
Speaker 5: The summit will bring together leaders and experts to get
Speaker 5: agreement on the next steps to turbocharge investment and reporting
Speaker 5: on nature. The Australian Government's doing more than ever.
Speaker 2: To mat and this seems like a pretty good thing.
Speaker 2: You know, when you think about nature or the environment,
Speaker 2: probably you think a summit like this would feature scientists, cologists, conservationists, policymakers, academics,
Speaker 2: traditional owners. If you look at the agenda of the summit,
Speaker 2: it's largely a financial event. And I really want to
Speaker 2: read you one of the program sessions because it just
Speaker 2: gets to a really important point I want to make.
Speaker 2: So there's a session called Unlocking the Future of Biodiversity Markets,
Speaker 2: and this session is going to delve into emerging opportunities
Speaker 2: for the convergence and interoperability of carbon and biodiversity markets.
Speaker 2: The session will highlight the role of markets as a
Speaker 2: key mechanism to unlock new sources of finance to achieve
Speaker 2: local and global nature positive goals, and for the absence
Speaker 2: of any doubt, I just want to reassure everyone listening
Speaker 2: who wonders what any of this means. It doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2: This is the worst kind of financial jargon, and it
Speaker 2: kind of feeds into that really vague terminology around the environment.
Speaker 2: We're now hearing about nature based solutions, natural capital, green finance,
Speaker 2: climate finance, and that's kind of what this whole summit
Speaker 2: is about. It's not about how do we stop doing harm.
Speaker 2: It's this idea that while it's very sad that our
Speaker 2: ecosystem a collapsing, the government can't afford to protect or
Speaker 2: restore the environment, and so the private sector needs to
Speaker 2: step in. And what has been proposed and what the
Speaker 2: basis of this summit is is that environmental markets and
Speaker 2: financial instruments are the means by which the private sector
Speaker 2: will want to voluntarily invest in the protection of the
Speaker 2: environment because there is some kind of profit to be made.
Speaker 1: Okay, So presumably the federal government would like to be
Speaker 1: able to announce that there is some movement in this space,
Speaker 1: that it has some sort of nature positive news to share.
Speaker 1: Do you think there will be anything?
Speaker 2: So if I take that question literally and we think
Speaker 2: about the term nature positive, positive implies that things are
Speaker 2: getting better. Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, land clearing
Speaker 2: is increasing, native forest logging is still happening. The more
Speaker 2: gene skate is on the brink of extinction. So I
Speaker 2: don't even know if we're heading towards nature neutral here,
Speaker 2: let alone nature positive. So we're one of the richest
Speaker 2: countries in the world. If the government was actually committed
Speaker 2: to this concept of nature positive, what we would be
Speaker 2: hearing from Minister Plibisec at the Nature Positive Summit would
Speaker 2: be first announcements about ending harm. You can't be nature
Speaker 2: positive until you stop being nature negative, so an internative
Speaker 2: forest logging, an end to subsidizing fossil fuels and end
Speaker 2: to new fossil fuel projects, and then you would start
Speaker 2: on the positive stuff. So there would be announcements about
Speaker 2: how to build on that. We're going to give money
Speaker 2: to farmers to help manage their lands. We're going to
Speaker 2: give our First Nations people the resources to live on
Speaker 2: and care for their land with no strings attached. We're
Speaker 2: going to dedicate the resources to the protection and restoration
Speaker 2: on the environment, as if our lives depended on it
Speaker 2: because our lives do depend on it, and I think
Speaker 2: if none of that is in her speech, if there
Speaker 2: are no announcements like that at the Nature Positive Summit,
Speaker 2: then it's going to be more buzzwords and more delay.
Speaker 1: But poly there are laws being put together right now,
Speaker 1: aren't there. Environmental laws are being debated in the Senate
Speaker 1: that would put in place a federal body to protect
Speaker 1: the environment, a federal EPA. So what difference would that make.
Speaker 2: I think it's really important to clarify two things that
Speaker 2: while these environment laws they're kind of framed as this
Speaker 2: enormous camera of all the things that will protect our ecosystem,
Speaker 2: they're actually not their development laws, and they're designed to
Speaker 2: protect the environment in that context only, so the EPA
Speaker 2: would never be a silver bullet for protecting the environment
Speaker 2: from all bad things that are happening. So yes, these
Speaker 2: things are really important. These laws have a specific purpose,
Speaker 2: but the way they're sold under the auspice of nature
Speaker 2: laws is that they are everything that is required in
Speaker 2: Australia to protect the environment, and only once these laws
Speaker 2: are reformed can the environment be protected. Until then, the
Speaker 2: government's hands are basically tied. While the Nature laws are
Speaker 2: being delayed. There are over twenty gas and coal projects
Speaker 2: waiting for approval that can now be approved under the
Speaker 2: old regime, and Minister Plibisec can say, well, guys, I
Speaker 2: didn't really want to do this, but I have no
Speaker 2: choice because we don't have the right nature laws in place.
Speaker 2: So it really suits a government who is supportive of
Speaker 2: fossil fuel expansion to blame these broken laws.
Speaker 1: Polly, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks Ruby.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, the New South Wales government
Speaker 1: is investigating a coal mine in great To Sydney after
Speaker 1: reports the min's operation caused damage to a culturally significant
Speaker 1: piece of artwork. Local indigenous leaders have likened the damage
Speaker 1: to Rio Tinto's blasting of a sacred cave in juk
Speaker 1: and Gorge, claiming the owners of the coal mine are
Speaker 1: trying to cover it up in the same way, and
Speaker 1: the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says Australia will
Speaker 1: not apologize for its comments condemning Iran's recent missile attacks
Speaker 1: on Israel. Last week, Iran launched a direct attack against
Speaker 1: Israel in response to Israel's dual assassinations of Hamas leader
Speaker 1: Ismaalhania and Hesbola's chief, Hassan Nasrala. Defat's statement comes after
Speaker 1: the Australian ambassador to Iran was summoned to a meeting
Speaker 1: with the Iranian Foreign Ministry due to what it called
Speaker 1: Australia's repeated bias commentary on Iran's actions against Israel. I'm
Speaker 1: Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Hello one