Climate Change

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:44): My question is to the Minister for Climate Change. Will the minister tell the chamber about recent South Australian government initiatives to promote activity, awareness and greater cooperation between states and territories on climate change?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:44): I congratulate the honourable member for his incredible question; it is most excellent. Our state and the state government recognise that climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face. We have long taken the lead in this area. We have committed to pursuing continued national and international collaboration to ensure that our state is prepared to face the challenges and embrace the opportunities of being an early adopter and the opportunities that that entails.

In the interests of pursuing continued collaboration, yesterday, Monday 4 May, the Premier hosted representatives from around the country for a meeting on climate change. We were honoured indeed to have Ms Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, attend the meeting. She is the highest ranking official from the United Nations working in the area of climate change.

She came to Adelaide at the state government's invitation to brief Australian state and territory governments on the progress towards a new global agreement on climate change set to be struck this December at the UN climate conference in Paris. Although it was arranged at short notice, environment and climate change ministers and senior officials from state, territory, commonwealth and also local government came to Adelaide for this important meeting.

The federal government's policy settings continue to baffle not only Australian governments but governments internationally. We all know that, if we read a little bit more broadly than that august journal, The Australian, would have it. Australia was once seen as a leader in climate change policy areas, but the current federal government has seen Australia scale back policies and initiatives that have been highly successful in addressing both the risks and also the opportunities that climate change presents for us as a country.

Australia's trading partners, including the US, China and Russia, have recognised the importance of transitioning to a low carbon economy and are gearing up to reduce their emissions more aggressively by 2020. Last week, the report commissioned by the federal government from the Climate Change Authority found that Australia's current target of a 5 per cent reduction by 2020 is insufficient and leaves us lagging behind other countries.

It is more important than ever that state and territory governments step up and take the lead to drive a national policy discussion about climate change as the federal government recedes into the dark. It is imperative that we work together to resolve the impasse on renewable energy targets, for example, and restore the certainty needed for renewable energy industries to invest. I note that just yesterday, I think, the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Bill Shorten, held out an olive branch to entice the federal government even further towards a cooperative arrangement on the RET, and we hope that that will be resolved shortly.

It is industries such as renewable energy industries that will provide the jobs of the future and enable Australia to export the know-how and technology on which future prosperity can be based. It is crucial that governments in Australia play a leadership role in reducing carbon emissions, for example, and that is what we have been doing here in South Australia. We lead the nation in renewables, with almost 40 per cent of our energy coming from clean sources.

We have increased our renewable energy target to 50 per cent by 2025 and aim to have $10 billion of investment in low carbon energy by 2025, but of course that is hinged crucially on the federal government reasserting support for a renewable energy target. We have been praised internationally on our award-winning Climate Change Adaptation Framework, which works with local communities to address issues of climate change locally, and we recently set ourselves the ambitious goal of making the Adelaide CBD the world's first carbon neutral city.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: Rubbish!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well, the Hon. Ms Lensink says, 'Rubbish!' She thinks carbon neutrality is rubbish. She doesn't believe that we should be addressing these issues, and she makes these allegations that she knows nothing about.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The minister has the floor.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: If she goes back and reads Hansard—and I will repeat it again for her—she will see that in fact this comment is not absolute rubbish as she said. We recently set ourselves the ambitious goal of making the Adelaide CBD the world's first carbon neutral city. How does she find fault with that? How can she find fault with that? We suspect the Liberals are, as always, internally divided on this issue. They cannot come to a position, and that's why they are astoundingly silent in the face of climate change scepticism by the federal government.

South Australia has become the first Australian state where the state government and city council have both signed key international agreements on climate change. Do I hear 'rubbish' from the Hon. Ms Lensink again about a factual statement? No; once again, the Liberals are silent. They have nothing to say on climate change. That's why they are absent from this debate, and that's why the states have to step up.

On Monday 27 April, the Premier and the Adelaide Lord Mayor, Martin Haese, signed two international agreements that will help monitor global greenhouse gas reduction targets and tackle climate change. I know that because I was there, and I can't hear the Hon. Michelle Lensink saying, 'That's rubbish.' Again, a factual statement just like the one she criticised as being rubbish.

The Compact of States and Regions and Compact of Mayors mean the state government and Adelaide City Council will report on targets and emissions reduction progress annually at an international level. This will provide, for the first time, a clear picture of how states and regional governments around the world are addressing climate change, and at the same time encourage other governments to seek goals and measure progress.

The inaugural report of the compacts, which were announced at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in 2014, convened by the UN Secretary-General Mr Ban Ki-Moon, will be presented at the Conference of Parties 21 meeting in Paris in December of this year. Each of these initiatives highlights the growing importance of subnational governments. It confirms the findings published in The Climate Group's States and Regions Report published during Climate Week in New York last year.

The report states that while national governments seem to be '…stuck in entrenched debates', regions are implementing innovative policies that are '…motivated by local needs, aimed at overcoming specific barriers, and designed to do more with less government spending'. In South Australia we have long recognised this. I am pleased to say that we are not alone in this regard.

At yesterday's meeting, attending ministers committed to renewed collaboration on key climate change initiatives, including large scale renewable energy, energy efficiency schemes, adaptation and subnational emission reduction targets. We know that transitioning to a low-carbon economy will attract investment, drive innovation and create jobs, while at the same time having a much-needed positive effect on our environment.

The states and territories are acting. We now need the federal government to follow suit. I would like to thank Ms Figueres, and all the visiting ministers and officials, for an extremely productive meeting. I'm excited to continue this work to achieve a robust, coherent and clear climate change policy in Australia, and South Australia will be leading the working group to advance progress in this area with other states and territories.