Climate action bill published - Culture change

As details of our belated climate action bill were published this week, Australians — including climate change denier prime minister Scott Morrison — had to come to terms with the fact that something around 8.4m hectares of their continent has been razed by uncontrollable, relentless, and far-from-finished bush fires.

It seems more than coincidental that the area devastated is the same size as our still-green 8.4421m-hectare island.

The bill will make our targets mandatory even though we have, with incomprehensible indifference, failed to meet those light-touch marks. The Climate Action (Amendment) Bill concentrates on transport, agriculture, housing and energy sectors, those responsible for rising Irish CO2 emissions that we must cut under the Paris Agreement.

The Irish Scott Morrisons — there are many, some powerful — will sneer and undermine but they must be faced down if we are not to invite a version of the calamity destroying Australian communities and lives. This bill will change our laws but it must lead to a change in culture too.