Q: Are you inclined to include a climate trigger? So effectively taking into account the impact of climate change in these environmental laws?

Murray Watt:

Look, we haven’t settled a position on that point yet. But what I would point out, Graham Samuel in his review did not recommend a climate trigger. He expressly ruled that out. What he recommended is companies when they’re putting forward projects for approval, should disclose their emissions and what their plans are to reduce their emissions going forward.

We’ve a range of other legislation and measures in place to require companies to reduce the emissions of their projects.

We’ve got our net zero targets, we’ve got the safeguards mechanism, that requires the largest emitting projects in Australia to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5% every year and be net zero by 2050. So it’s not as if we’re not dealing with these issues, but the point Graham Samuel was making, there’s no need to duplicate them in the environmental laws as well as having the climate laws in place.