2025-09-24
truths we cannot ignore
By Larissa Waters, Leader of the Australian Greens
Over the past few weeks, three events revealed the truth about Australia’s climate future. The question now is whether our government has the courage to act.
Over the past few weeks, three events have revealed the truth about Australia’s climate future, our natural world, and the choices our government is making.
First, Labor approved the extension of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project, the biggest new fossil fuel project in the Southern Hemisphere, locking in pollution until 2070.
This decision endangers sacred Murujuga rock art and the pristine Scott Reef, and will pump billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. It was a betrayal of voters who were promised climate action, of every community already living with fire, flood and deadly heat, and of the environment that sustains us all.
Second, after months of pressure from the Greens, the government finally released its long-hidden National Climate Risk Assessment. The report is chilling. It warns of 1.5 million Australians at risk of losing their homes to sea level rise within 25 years.
It projects a 400 per cent surge in heat-related deaths in our cities, collapsing food production, mass species extinction, and $4.2 trillion in economic losses by the end of the century. These are not distant hypotheticals. They are foreseeable, preventable futures.
And third, the Prime Minister unveiled Australia’s new 2035 climate targets: a reduction of just 62 to 70 per cent.
That target ignores the science, which is unequivocal. Net zero by 2035 is essential to keep warming under 2 degrees. Anything less is a plan for more disasters, higher living costs, and an unlivable future.
Together, these moments paint a stark picture.
While Labor approves new coal and gas, sits on dire scientific warnings, and sets weak climate targets, Australians face rising costs, deepening insecurity, and the irreversible loss of nature.
Coal and gas corporations will love this failure of ambition, but everyday people will pay the price in higher insurance premiums, lost homes, lost jobs, and lost ecosystems.
But there is another truth. Change is still possible.
The climate risk assessment shows what is at stake, but it also demonstrates that more decisive climate action can protect lives, livelihoods and ecosystems.
Communities across the country are ready for a safe, renewable future: farmers investing in clean energy, workers demanding secure jobs in new industries, young people fighting for their future, and people everywhere taking action to protect the nature they cherish.
Businesses know it too. Hundreds of companies are already calling for a target of at least 75 per cent, because they know it will create jobs, strengthen the economy and open new markets.
With the Greens in the balance of power, the government has a clear pathway to deliver the substantive climate action Australians voted for and are ready for.
We have been clear, and remain on record, that we want to work constructively to make that happen.
In this parliament, we have already introduced a Climate Trigger Bill to stop new coal and gas projects, pushed for science-based 2035 targets, and forced the release of Labor’s secret Climate Risk Assessment.
But we should not have to drag the government kicking and screaming to act.
If they had true ambition, they would seize this moment and work with us to protect people, nature and our future.
This is the opportunity to phase out coal and gas, end native forest logging, and legislate for net zero by 2035.
It is the chance to choose courage over delay, truth over denial, and people and nature over polluters. It is also an opportunity to support clean, publicly owned energy that reduces power bills and benefits Australian businesses, rather than multinational coal and gas corporations.
The past two weeks have stripped away Labor’s excuses. The truth is inescapable. The question now is whether our government has the courage to act on it.