Zali Steggall’s climate bill is a step backwards

Independent MP Zali Steggall has presented her new climate bill as a way to break the deadlock on climate action. But it avoids the key question of what policies we need to cut emissions—and so will get us nowhere.

It would simply set up a Climate Change Commission to draw up five-year plans on how to reduce emissions, focused on a target of zero emissions by 2050. But labelling the plans “independent” is just a sleight of hand. There is no way of avoiding the debate about what mechanisms are best to reduce emissions. If the Commission proposed a carbon price, another carbon tax, it would only generate the same opposition about higher power prices that the Liberals used to undermine support for climate action under Tony Abbott.

The fact that the Bill has attracted support from not just business figures like Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes but even the Business Council of Australia, which represents the country’s 100 biggest corporations including oil and gas company Woodside and mining giant Rio Tinto, should set off alarm bells. They see it as a way to argue for climate policies that won’t hurt corporate profits.

We need the kind of action that will impose costs on business—large-scale government investment in jobs and renewable energy, paid for by taxing corporations and the rich. Steggall’s Bill would only set back climate action.

Magazine

Solidarity meetings

Latest articles

Read more

Gomeroi win in the Federal Court: now kill off gas in...

Gomeroi people have won a stunning legal victory over gas giant Santos, as the Federal Court upheld an appeal against a Native Title Tribunal ruling from December 2022.

Labor extending the life of coal and gas amid climate emergency

The NSW Labor government is set to lock in more pollution through extending the life of Eraring, the country’s largest coal-fired power station.

World leaders at COP28 still on course for climate catastrophe

Despite the overwhelming evidence that serious action is urgently needed to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, 2023’s UN climate summit COP28 provided nothing in the way of solutions.