Oh, Yeah, Good Idea! Australia's Environmental Laws Should Mention Global Warming, Sez Gov Minister

[hatrack]

Australia’s 20-year-old national environmental laws need to be modernised to address climate change as part of the statutory review now under way, the chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory, Andrew Barr, has said. Speaking in Canberra on Friday, Barr also called on the Morrison government to increase funding for agencies responsible for environmental assessments for major projects, saying budget cuts had caused delays to assessments.

“There is and has been quite an important review of that piece of legislation that’s now 20-odd years old,” Barr said. “[The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act] has no reference at all to climate change, for example, which it absolutely has to as part of a review and modernisation of that act.” n interim report from the review, chaired by the former competition watchdog chairman Graeme Samuel, was published in July and found governments had failed to protect Australia’s unique native species.

The government is now planning to establish bilateral agreements that would devolve national environmental approval powers to the states and territories.

Samuel’s review has recommended this occur under a new set of national environmental standards that set legally enforceable rules for environmental protection.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/16/morrison-government-urged-to-use-australian-conservation-laws-to-address-climate-change