Australia has just taken another step in favour of climate. Parliament on Thursday passed laws targeting the biggest polluters. Under the agreement, Australia's 215 cleanest facilities, such as coal mines and gas-fired power plants, will have to reduce their net emissions by almost 5% a year until 2030. Fossil fuels and mining are the backbone of the Australian economy.
"This is the first time that reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been enshrined in Australian law," Tommy Wiedmann, a sustainability expert at the University of New South Wales, told AFP. The text is expected to enter into force on 1 July.
One of the world's largest coal exporters
Australia is one of the world's largest coal exporters and therefore one of the biggest laggards when it comes to climate protection. For more than a decade, political wrangling has paralyzed attempts to reduce emissions.
But a series of severe natural disasters have helped convince leaders to take the climate emergency seriously, including the catastrophic 2022 floods on Australia's east coast and the 2019-2020 "black summer" fires, which burned more than eight million hectares of vegetation.
Anthony Albanese's Labour government came to power last year promising to break with the fossil fuel policy of the previous Conservative government.
- Planet
- Australia
- Global warming
- Pollution