Media Releases

2 March 2022

As thousands of Australians are struggling through record-breaking floods, Zali Steggall MP has reiterated calls for urgent action to assess climate change risks to communities and accelerate Australia’s mitigation and adaptation measures.

“The IPCC report released last night is a loud and clear siren call. Right now, we are seeing mass evacuations from record-breaking floods long foreshadowed by climate scientists. The timing of the IPCC report’s release drives home the inescapable fact that our communities are highly exposed to extreme weather events caused by global warming.

“The catastrophic one-in-100-year weather events are now of unprecedented scope and frequency - we are careening from disaster to disaster, from drought, to bushfires, to floods.”

Zali Steggall MP has long called for recurring national risk assessments to protect communities, “The Climate Change Bill I tabled in Parliament mandated regular risk assessments, vital to keep communities safe with clear adaptation and mitigation plans. The Morrison Government is refusing to do national risk assessments because it wants to downplay the impact on Australia of global warming so it can justify its failure to meaningfully act on climate change and reduce emissions.”

“That’s a recipe for disaster after disaster after disaster. We need to act now to avoid the compounded and cascading climate impacts the IPCC report is warning us about, which would mean we are unable to recover from one disaster before we encounter the next.”

The IPCC report has reiterated the importance of adaptation planning in the short term. A separate Deloitte report forecasts the cost of natural disasters to be over $1.2 trillion in cumulative costs to Australia over the next forty years

“The cost is already catastrophic. The IPCC report says that we have a window of opportunity in the next 10 years to turn this around before the worst of global warming is locked in. It must be our highest priority. The report is telling us that climate impacts will reach a point where Governments will not be able to cope.”

“There is a persistent and often deliberate misrepresentation by government that the disasters faced by communities all over Australia are rare events. This is simply not true anymore.”

“The Government can't even write a detailed plan that gets to the zero they spruik in their net zero by 2050 pamphlet. It's all empty promises with no genuine commitment to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. This week I will be releasing a Five-Step plan for 60% emissions reduction by 2030 and Net Zero by 2050, ultimately setting the groundwork for our climate resilience in a rapidly changing world.”

Zali Steggall MP is hosting a Climate Leadership Forum on Thursday following the release of her 5 Steps to Net Zero.

For media requests contact Ash Berdebes on 0407 790 892 or [email protected]