Deep Sea Mining companies have been ambitiously touting July 2023 as the dawn of their industry, utilising a legal loophole in an attempt to exert pressure on governments for swift approval. However, their plans were met with formidable resistance at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) during a marathon 3-week negotiation process last week.

Governments from around the world demonstrated extraordinary resilience and wisdom by standing united against the commercial pressure exerted by the deep sea mining industry. In an unprecedented move, they refused to yield to short-term interests and prioritised the protection of our precious oceans.

At the heart of this remarkable achievement was the rejection of the proposed ‘mining code’ that would have enabled deep sea mining operations to commence. Governments voiced clear political opposition to the immediate start of deep sea mining, understanding the potential catastrophic consequences it could have on our marine ecosystems.

This milestone marks a crucial turning point in our campaign, demonstrating the power of collective action and the effectiveness of our tireless advocacy. However, we recognise that there is still much work to be done. The fight to safeguard our oceans from this dangerous industry is far from over.

We must remain vigilant and steadfast in our efforts to ensure that deep sea mining remains halted for the long-term. Greenpeace will continue to work tirelessly alongside our allies, engaging in further negotiations and rallying public support to protect our fragile marine environments.

Together, we have shown that when we unite for a common cause, we can make a difference. Let this victory inspire us to persevere in the face of challenges and renew our commitment to safeguarding the oceans and the countless species that call them home.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all those who have supported us in this campaign, and we invite you to join us in the ongoing struggle to defend our oceans from harm. Together, we can forge a sustainable future that respects the irreplaceable wonders of our deep seas.

The agreement of this Treaty keeps the 30×30 target – protecting 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 – alive. It provides a pathway to creating fully or highly protected areas across the world’s oceans. There are still flaws in the text, and governments must ensure that the Treaty is put into practice in an effective and equitable way for it to be considered a truly ambitious Treaty.

The text will now go through technical editing and translation, before officially being adopted at another session. This Treaty is a monumental win for ocean protection, and an important sign that multilateralism still works in an increasingly divided world.

Show your support and help secure a strong treaty by signing our global petition.

Australia’s biggest climate polluter AGL will today start the process of shutting the remaining three of four units at the 50-year old Liddell power station in New South Wales. The heavily  polluting power station – one of Australia’s most unreliable and decrepit – will be replaced by large amounts of wind and solar energy, coupled with big batteries.

Glenn Walker, Head of Advocacy and Strategy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, congratulated AGL for following through on its plans to shut down the power station, and urged the company to close its two remaining stations by 2030.

“AGL’s remaining coal burning power stations in Victoria and New South Wales are equally unreliable polluting clunkers. The sooner they are shut down the better it will be for the climate and the health of local communities,” he said.

“With recent leadership changes at AGL, the company can and should be a renewable energy leader. By future-proofing the grid with renewable energy, AGL can be an industry leader for Australia’s rapid transition away from dirty coal and gas to clean energy.”

It’s the first major closure of a coal-burning power station since 2017, after Engie’s Hazelwood station was shut down in Victoria.

Walker said Liddell’s closure will be a tipping point for Australia’s energy transition.

“When the closure of Liddell was announced in 2017, it caused a political storm, leading to the sacking of then AGL CEO Andy Vesey. Despite the initial protesting from small-minded politicians and commentators, this announcement helped spur a massive four-fold increase in renewable energy production in NSW since 2017, meaning that dirty Liddell will be replaced by clean energy,” he said.

“The lesson from Liddell should be that companies like AGL and politicians alike need to show courage and get on with the job of cleaning up our dirty energy system. With leadership, forward planning, and smart investment in renewable energy the transition from coal and gas to renewables can be seamless.”

The closure comes after a two year campaign by Greenpeace Australia Pacific to have AGL bring forward the closure of their coal-burning power stations. Loy Yang A was scheduled to close in 2048 but is now slated to close in 2035. Bayswater was due to close in 2035 but will now close as early as 2030. 

Greenpeace maintains that both of these remaining power stations need to close by 2030 to align with the Paris Agreement and keep dangerous global heating below 1.5 degrees.

—ENDS—

A Greenpeace investigation revealed that AGL was Australia’s biggest climate polluter by a long shot. 85% of their electricity came from burning coal, and as the owners and operators of three of the largest coal-burning power stations in the country, they were acting as a dam wall to a flood of renewable energy into Australia.

We knew that if we want to transform Australia’s energy system, we needed to start with AGL. AGL’s transformation from Australia’s biggest climate polluter to one of Australia’s biggest climate solutions is now well underway. It has been one of the most dramatic in Australian corporate history.

Our new film Power Play is the story of how Greenpeace and our supporters, along with a diverse group of people and organisations waged a strategic campaign against AGL and its leadership team; challenging the company’s false clean and green image, turning away its customers, threatening its funding sources, and convincing its shareholders to take action.

Read more at https://www.greenpeace.org.au/act/agl

This comes after Chevron and BP, the other major oil companies, quit their plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight following relentless campaigning from Greenpeace and our supporters.

Citing the Bight as “not commercially competitive”, Equinor abandoned its plans to drill 2.5 kilometres deep, which would’ve disturbed the unique ecosystem of the Bight. The company was the last major oil company with a permit to explore drilling prospects in the Bight.

We succeeded by petitioning BP to withdraw its oil drilling plans and by pressuring NOPSEMA to do what’s right by our fragile ecosystems, setting a strong precedent for future oil giants who may seek to exploit the natural resources of the Great Australian Bight.

In our documentary “Dirty Power”, we worked with investigative journalist Michael West to expose the secretive ties between political figures, major industry members, and media organisations which continue to undermine and thwart tangible climate action.

Our documentary has been viewed and shared over 200,000 times, demonstrating the overwhelming demand from community members for effective action to limit climate damage and transition to clean energy.

The federal government and the Coalition-governed states appeared to be united behind this do-nothing policy, and to a certain extent, even their Labor counterparts looked like reluctant supporters.

Well, it didn’t take long for that house of cards to come spectacularly crashing down. Last month when Greenpeace launched a crowdfunder to air TV ads warning of the NEG’s threat to renewables, the rabid right of the Coalition sprung into action.

Even before the ads had aired, the climate change denialist Senator and Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan, had denounced them. Fortunately, the senator did it in a bizarre and nonsensical way that failed to make an impact beyond equally denialist publications like The Australian. Still, the reaction told us we were onto something.

Just a few days after launching the crowdfunder, thanks to the generosity of our supporters we had raised more than $54,000, enough to cover all the costs of producing our ad and putting it to air in the battleground states of Victoria and Queensland. At the same time, thousands of our supporters around the country emailed and phoned their state energy ministers, telling them to protect renewables and reject the NEG.

Late last month we stepped up our lobbying of the key players, armed with the credibility that comes with a comprehensive report on the the NEG’s impact on emissions and power prices. It was doubly authoritative because we used the same firm that the federal government itself uses for such modelling.  

Our report not only confirmed that the NEG was garbage on emissions, but also revealed that a 45 percent target, as opposed to the government’s 26 percent target, would actually reduce power prices by a quarter. Labor’s Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Mark Butler liked it so much the report became his proof that more renewables leads to lower prices, and emboldened him to make the case for more ambitious climate action.

The report also raised questions about the dodgy modelling that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his energy minister Josh Frydenberg had used to justify their claim that the NEG would reduce prices. We did some digging and found the modelling doesn’t exist, the government was just plucking numbers out of thin air and having them regurgitated by an uncritical media. It was sad that when the Senate forced the government to reveal their deception the public narrative had again shifted, with the focus on the concessions a weak and embattled leader was making to get the NEG through his divided party room.

We also published widely reported on polling, that showed the depth of public support for renewables, acceptance of the inevitability of a renewables-dominated energy system and Australians’ overwhelming desire for the government to invest in clean energy over coal.

The combination of all these tactics piled the pressure on the states to reject the NEG, and they duly complied with Victoria announcing four conditions it required to support the policy in the lead up to what loomed as a crucial August 10, COAG meeting.

While the demands were moderate and reasonable, there’s no reasoning with the coal huggers in the Coalition. Turnbull was now ensnared in a trap, where any concessions to make the NEG more attractive to the states would made it more difficult to support by those within his own ranks.

The NEG scraped through COAG with neither approval nor rejection, but it was on life support, as was Turnbull’s leadership.

In a desperate bid to save the NEG Turnbull announced he would enshrine the target in regulation rather than legislation, allowing the minister to adjust the target without the approval of parliament. But in a classic Turnbullesque move, the PM only hardened opposition on all sides. Greenpeace and the states decried that the already inadequate target could now be moved backwards, while the detractors in the Coalition saw Turnbull’s weakness and moved in for the kill.

Then on Monday Turnbull lost all credibility, with all stakeholders when he held a press conference to announce that the emission reduction legislation was no longer a part of the NEG. The PM had removed the climate part of the nation’s climate policy. It was no longer a climate policy, just the latest political compromise to keep Turnbull in power for a little bit longer.

If not already history, Turnbull’s prime ministership will be nothing but a memory pretty soon. The man who famously said he would not lead a party that was not as committed to climate change as he was, has now given up on climate policy to lead a party of denialists.   

Time to celebrate! The dogged resistance of ordinary renewable-loving Australians, combined with Victoria and the Labor states have killed off the renewables-wrecking NEG.

This is your victory and you should celebrate, but don’t party too long. This entire fiasco has exposed the depth of climate denialism within the Coalition, and that has implications far beyond their faction-riven party room. Yet again they have torn themselves apart in a seemingly never-ending mission to stifle the action on climate change that our drought and bushfire-stricken nation desperately needs.

Stopping the NEG is a victory in the battle for renewable energy and the jobs in that growing industry. The NEG would have done nothing to help the planet, but Turnbull’s pandering to the climate deniers has now created a situation where calls for the government to ramp up pollution by subsidising coal with taxpayer money, are being openly embraced.

Turnbull has not only stopped progress on climate policy but has actually taken us back decades – energy policy is once again being made without any consideration of climate change and we will all suffer as a consequence.

States like Queensland and Victoria are leading the transition to renewable energy but their admirable efforts risk being undermined by an increasingly denialist federal government that appears to have made the decision that short term political victories are more important than the environment.

The NEG now joins the Gillard government’s short-lived price on carbon pollution, Clean Energy Target, Emissions Intensity Scheme and others on the growing scrap heap of Australian climate policy. This situation is completely untenable and leaves the nation vulnerable to more coal pollution, higher power prices caused by the uncertain environment and climate change inaction, which manifests itself in epic droughts and the winter bushfires we are now seeing across NSW.

The tens of thousands of Australians who opposed the NEG want renewables protected, and that goes hand in hand with an ambitious climate policy that comes as close as possible to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

This should be a priority for whoever leads the Coalition going into the future. However, the ascendancy of climate sceptics makes that an unlikely scenario. It is now more important than ever that Labor seize the moment and Bill Shorten delivers a policy that incentivises clean energy production to bring down prices and emissions.

Whatever he does, or whoever leads the country going forward, Greenpeace will be watching on behalf of all our supporters and people who want a healthy green future. The NEG is dead but we can’t let the fight for clean power and action on climate change to die with it.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific launched a crowdfunder, Save Solar, to stop the policy going through. In a matter of weeks, we raised nearly $55,000 to expose the then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s dirty power plan through TV advertising in Victoria and Queensland. The advertisements called for Australians to contact their state energy ministers and tell them to reject the government’s NEG.

The NEG was effectively rejected under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership and was subsequently dumped by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Once they enter waterways, these plastics can often be mistaken for food by marine animals like sea turtles. As plastic bags can take 20-1000 years to break down naturally, they can stay lodged in animals’ airways and cause death.

According to the National Retail Association, the switch to reusable bag options at these two supermarkets has seen an 80% drop in plastic bag consumption in Australia. With this move by the two major supermarkets in Australia, other retailers will hopefully begin phasing out single-use plastics and introduce more sustainable alternatives.