Environment law reform

A climate action moment

September 25, 2025

With the release of a harrowing climate impact report, fossil fuel projects surging ahead, and weak national climate targets , hope can feel out of reach.

But the current reform of Australia’s environment laws could change everything – if reform means climate has to be considered in environmental decision-making

Below, we’ll deep dive into what climate action should look like in our environment laws.

The fatal flaw in our environment laws

Australia’s national environment law – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) – is meant to stop projects that cause unacceptable damage to nature.

But here’s the fatal flaw: the Act is silent on climate change.

Right now, coal and gas projects are assessed for local impacts on protected places and species. But the biggest threat of all – the climate damage they unleash – isn’t on the checklist.

That means Environment Ministers can wave through fossil fuel projects without ever properly weighing their climate harm to threatened species, ecosystems and communities.

And waved through they are.

In the 25 years since the Act was introduced:

More than 750 fossil fuel projects have been approved or allowed through without assessment.

99.9% of the fossil fuel projects assessed by federal environment ministers under the Act have been approved.

In short: Australia's national environment law ignores the single greatest threat to the environment it's meant to protect.

Living wonders and the EBC Act

The Living Wonders legal cases made this failure impossible to ignore.

In 2022, the Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECoCeQ) handed the Environment Minister thousands of pages of scientific evidence showing how 19 massive coal and gas projects would each drive climate harm to thousands of threatened species and ecosystems protected under the EPBC Act.

The request was simple: use existing powers in the EPBC Act to reconsider these projects in light of their climate risk.

But both Ministers Plibersek and Watt refused. Coal and gas projects like the Narrabri Underground Coalmine Extension, Mount Pleasant Optimisation Project and Woodside’s North West Shelf extension could all be all waved through to approval – without proper assessment of their climate harm to our environment.

So ECoCeQ took the government all the way to the High Court. Their cases were ultimately unsuccessful, but the the Full Federal Court still spelled it out: Australia’s environment laws are “ill-suited” to deal with climate change.

That’s the problem in black and white. Our laws are broken, and nature is falling through the cracks.

The conversation in Canberra

Right now, in Parliament House, Labor Ministers and their staff are deep in negotiations on environmental law reform.

The early signs aren’t promising. Industry voices are pushing to weaken already-broken laws, while politicians are refusing to include climate change.

It’s a strange omission when you remember this legislation’s core purpose: to protect the environment.

And their excuse? “We dealt with it under the safeguard mechanism.”

Except they haven’t.

Why the safeguard mechanism isn’t a silver bullet

The safeguard mechanism doesn’t stop coal, gas and big polluters from driving climate damage. It sets caps, but lets companies buy carbon credits instead of cutting emissions. There’s no requirement to actually reduce emissions.

It doesn’t assess or reject new projects on climate grounds, and it ignores Australia’s biggest contribution: exported coal and gas.

That’s not a safeguard – it’s a carbon trading scheme.

Strong environment laws that include climate change would fill this gap by assessing the real-world impacts of new projects before they’re approved.

So, here's the picture:

Our one national law to protect the environment ignores climate harm
The safeguard mechanism, is just a carbon trading scheme that lets polluters keep polluting.
And beyond that, Australia has no plan at all for the environmentally devastating climate damage from coal and gas exports.

That’s the gap.

Reform of our national environment laws is a once-in-a-generation chance to close it.

The opportunity

With Labor rewriting our national environment laws, what feels like a hopeless chapter for climate action could become our biggest opportunity – if people demand it.

Environment Minister Watt is currently refusing to add climate considerations or a climate trigger into Australia’s new environment laws.

But climate change is not going away, so any environment law in 2025 must embed climate into the very core of decision-making.