Greens Leader, Adam Bandt, has responded to the IPCC report on climate impacts and adaptation released overnight as well as the latest Australian emissions data, slamming Liberal and Labor for their commitment to 114 new coal and gas projects.

Minister Keith Pitt has this morning recommitted the Government to fracking the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin through the funding stream that was previously struck down by the Federal Court.

The Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program will now see $19.4 million in grants awarded to Liberal Party-aligned donor Empire Energy.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt MP says the closure announcement of Australia’s largest coal fired plant shows why Australia urgently needs a credible climate and energy plan.

Origin Energy has brought forward closure of the NSW Eraring power plant, one of the most polluting in the country, by seven years to 2025.

Despite this build up of announced coal closures before 2030, the government’s own projections that they took to Glasgow show another one to two further coal plants closing in the next eight years, which the government won’t tell us - or coal communities - about.

I am going to make this as simple as I possibly can.

The Liberal-National government and Labor opposition's climate target is for net zero emissions by 2050. I think that's too late. The science says that's too late. But that's their target. The Liberal and Labor target is for net zero emissions by 2050.

At the Greens’ first face to face Party Room meeting of the year on Monday 7 February before Parliament resumes, the party will confirm the approach it will take to Labor’s climate legislation in balance of power in the Senate and the House in the likely event of a change of government at the upcoming election.

Lines attributable to Queensland Senator Larissa Waters:

“A belated cash splash on the Great Barrier Reef is a joke from a government that has turbo charged the climate crisis imperilling the Reef by giving billions to fossil fuels and backing new coal and gas. 
 
“Climate policy is the most important factor in saving the Reef and the government’s policy is crap.

Liberal and Labor need to join with the Greens in making the energy operator's plan for a renewable superpower a reality, Greens Leader Adam Bandt said today.

The draft Integrated System Plan released by the Australian Energy Market Operator includes 4 possible futures for the electricity grid, including a Hydrogen Superpower scenario which would see coal close within a decade. 

The Greens today rejected Labor’s ‘take it or leave it’ approach to climate, saying people wanted parties to work together on something as important as climate, and that now that the likely reality of a power-sharing Parliament was dawning on everyone, Labor should not let their idea of the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Lines attributable to Leader of the Greens Adam Bandt MP:

“Liberal and Labor now seem to agree on one thing, which is that the Greens will be the most powerful party in the next Parliament. 

The Greens today repeated their call to kick out the Liberals, but slammed Labor’s weak climate targets and promise that “not one coal fired power station will close due to Labor’s policy” in the face of urgent global demands for climate action, saying the more we hear about Labor’s climate policy the worse it gets.

Labor’s Chris Bowen today also confirmed that under Labor’s policy:

Greens Leader Adam Bandt MP has criticised today’s climate announcement, saying Labor has given up on climate.  

Labor’s target is not consistent with the science of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, the goal set out in the Glasgow Climate Pact. Labor now joins the Liberals with targets that have given up on the science, given up on Glasgow and given up on the climate.