Fully implemented, the ‘Nature Positive’ model on which the reforms are built could completely reframe decisions to approve (or not) development projects following environmental impact assessment (EIA). However, it all comes down to ‘who pays’?
policy
How to beat ‘rollout rage’: the environment-versus-climate battle dividing regional Australia
Clean energy developers are caught in a perfect storm, at loggerheads with environmentalists and landholders alike over environmental conditions, proper consultation and compensation, while grappling with long regulatory delays and supply chain blockages for their materials. They see a system that provides environmental approval on paper but seemingly unworkable conditions and intolerable delays in practice. Does the bureaucracy’s left hand, they wonder, know what its right hand is doing? Net zero, nature protection and “rollout rage” feel like a toxic mix. Yet we have to find a quick way to deliver the clean energy projects we urgently need. As tough as this problem appears, elements of a potential solution, at least in outline, are on the table. These elements are: good environmental information, regional environmental planning and meaningful public participation. The government’s Nature Positive Plan for stronger environmental laws promises all three.
Nature Positive: Real change or a just another form of box ticking?
Will ‘Nature Positive’ deliver real change or just a new opportunity for box ticking and political window dressing? As a concept, Nature Positive has plenty of potential for good biodiversity outcomes and its endorsement in the Henry Review is a good thing for biodiversity nationally. However, like ESD before it, Nature Positive can be hollowed out or reduced to a slogan if that is where the politics takes it.
Biodiversity’s ‘Big Switch’: Ken Henry’s review of the NSW Biodiversity Act
The Henry Review found, essentially, that the NSW Biodiversity Act is not working and that biodiversity continues to decline in the state of New South Wales. Although the law is complex, the policy bottom line is simple: biodiversity is protected to a degree, but this will never stand in the way of development prioritised by government. The review proposes to switch off the discretionary ‘balancing’ that occurs under the auspices of the Ecologically Sustainable Development principles (under which the ‘balance’ almost always favours development). And to switch on a ‘nature positive’ framework.
“Measuring What Matters”: With the first results in, what next?
The first version of Australia’s national wellbeing framework “Measuring What Matters” has been released. The basic idea of the report is to shift from our narrow focus on key economic indicators, such as GDP and inflation, to embrace a wider suite of indicators that measure our overall quality of life. In the environment theme, six areas are covered: (urban) air quality; biodiversity; climate resilience; emissions reduction; protected areas; and resource use and waste generation. The headline result has to be that the threatened species index, which tracks the abundance of a selection of threatened species, shows a decline of 55% from a 1985 baseline to 2019, a period of just 34 years. This is a shocking number.
Have we learnt nothing? Don’t put all your (biodiversity) ‘eggs’ into a single (market) ‘basket’!
Before we commit all our ‘biodiversity eggs’ to the ‘market basket’ and leave saving Nature to the market traders, could we quickly reflect on what’s been done in the past to save biodiversity? How did we attempt to protect Nature before markets were put forward as our road to salvation? What are the lessons? Those lessons would include attention to governance, resourcing, inclusion and justice. Ignore these dimensions and there’s little prospect that a market-driven approach is going to achieve anything better.
$78 Billion from a Nature repair market? Seriously? Tanya Plibersek’s Nature Repair Market Bill 2023
Price Waterhouse Coopers has produced a report, A Nature-Positive Australia, which says that there could be $78 billion of private investments in Nature repair in Australia by 2050. Seriously? There are multiple reasons why this seems highly unlikely.
Get the basics right for National Environmental Standards to ensure truly sustainable development
Australia’s environment minister faces some tough calls in developing national environmental standards. If strong and clear, they will protect nature and make it harder to get developments approved. But if the standards lack a clear statement of purpose and carry over rubbery phrases and weak offset requirements, then it will be business as usual, freshly wrapped.
Whatever it takes, or just “whatever”? Biodiversity targets post Montreal
If the environment minister is serious about the domestic delivery of the Kunming-Montreal 2030 biodiversity targets, she’ll need to burn a lot of political capital, not just with various stakeholders, but with her own Cabinet colleagues.
From moonlight jewels to common browns: what do butterfly accounts say about biodiversity conservation?
Biodiversity is important and butterflies are beautiful. But Australia’s biodiversity is in steep decline. Maybe environmental accounts can help here, and butterflies are a great example demonstrating how.
Nature Repair Market bill may repair the environment, but is it the Budget that will need repair?
Can markets put a value on improvements in biodiversity, enabling landholders to be paid for their services to nature and allowing businesses, among others, to invest in the biodiversity credits that landholders would produce. The new Nature Repair Market bill certainly aligns with this framing, but investors are unlikely to sign up, at least not without inducements.
New ‘Big Agenda’ for Nature faces many hurdles
The Albanese Government’s ‘Nature Positive Plan’ announced last week is a much-anticipated response to Professor Graeme Samuel’s 2020 Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. The plan is packed with policy announcements, most of which stick close to Samuel’s recommendations. But the path of this big agenda stretches far over the political horizon and is littered with hurdles. Here are ten hurdles the minister will have to jump, just for starters.
The fifth and final transformation: Restoring trust in decision-making
One of the main findings of the Samuel Review of the EPBC Act was that it was not trusted, either by business nor by the wider community. Restoring trust requires a fundamental shift from process-based decision-making to outcome-based decisions. This requires standards supported by regional plans and stronger institutions, including information systems and compliance regimes. At the end of the day, people will only trust environmental laws that truly protect and conserve the environment.
Laying new foundations for environmental decisions: the fourth transformation
The consequences of Australia’s long-term underfunding of our national environmental law, compounded in some cases by lack of political vision or will, are that many of the foundations of the current system of environmental protection and conservation provided for by the EPBC Act are either significantly under-done, or not done at all.
A connection with tomorrow’s citizens – calling for a Ministry for the Future
The boldest and most fundamental change being proposed in the book The Ministry for the Future is a combination of economics, technology and innovations in governance that, when combined, gave reason for people to invest in their future. For surely, that is the real challenge of our times. It seems unprecedented climate disruption, with the certain prospect of greater disruption with every passing year, is not enough for us to make this important shift.
It’s ‘business as usual’, but at least there actually is plenty of business
Australia’s environment department has been run down over the past decade. This month’s Estimate hearings reveals that the new Labor Government is putting extra resources towards environmental management. What does that mean? In terms of Indigenous heritage protection it’s a rare example of good news in the environment portfolio. In terms of biodiversity, the new government has made a small down payment, but on a veritable mountain of environmental debt.