The Australian Parliament has today passed the legislation to reform the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act), after the government agreed on a deal with the Greens.
Dr. Sasha Courville, CEO CMI, said: “This is a welcomed overhaul of Australia’s national environment laws that haven’t been amended in more than 25 years.”
“Importantly, the Environment Protection Reform Bill requires disclosure on greenhouse gas emissions for large-emitting projects, alongside an emission reduction plan. Although falling short of a climate trigger, the requirements link climate change impacts as a key driver to nature decline and provide a clear signal to business.”
Climate change and biodiversity loss represent an immediate and existential threat to people and ecosystems across the world. Climate change and its related impacts are accelerating, and there is an inextricably linked global biodiversity crisis, exacerbated by the changing climate. These effects are being strongly felt in Australia, where we are experiencing compounding impacts from extreme heat waves, more frequent and severe floods, and longer, more intense bushfires.
“The EPBC overhaul provides Australia with bolstered environmental laws that are another key part of our interlocking, enduring national climate and nature policy architecture,” said Dr. Courville.
“In the context of EPBC Act reforms and the Nature Positive Plan, the Government should consider where the environmental law reform can support climate change resilience by aligning implementation of the Nature Positive Plan with adjacent climate programs, including forthcoming work on the National Adaptation Plan.”
“The challenge will be in the implementation and in the development of granular national environmental standards, touted for 2026. Some concerns remain especially in the way in which the new Ministerial powers to make determinations on national environmental standards are exercised in conjunctions with the remit of the National Environmental Protection Agency.”
“Ministerial decisions should be made in the public interest and apply National Environmental Standards consistently.”
The negotiated outcome that led to the revised legislation includes federal oversight for high-risk land clearing and native forestry, and blocks coal and gas projects from being ‘fast-tracked’. Land clearing and related large-scale destruction of habitats is considered the biggest threat to biodiversity in Australia whilst also releasing substantial carbon dioxide in vegetation and soils.
New EPBC Act powers to stop illegal land clearing and controls on native forest logging are critical to halting and reversing this land degradation and in line with international science and practice.
The IPCC 6th synthesis report outlines the most effective opportunity for climate action in land systems as reducing the conversion of natural ecosystems and COP30 which has just concluded in Brazil had a major focus on ending deforestation.
Dr. Courville stated that “with these law reforms Australia now has a real chance of halting ecosystem and biodiversity decline and tackling land restoration. Carbon farming, through ACCU Scheme projects and Nature Repair Market projects can play a critical role in this land repair job.”
Earlier this year, CMI and NRM Regions Australia co-authored the Carbon for Nature report outlining how carbon farming investment can be leveraged to deliver additional nature benefits.
The increased focus on “nature positive” outcomes, including the emergence of the Nature Repair Market, provides avenues to better consider how the policy environment for carbon farming and nature can work more closely together, and how carbon farming can be leveraged and optimised to deliver wide-scale landscape restoration and increased biodiversity habitats, and contribute to solving the biodiversity, as well as the climate crisis.
