THE CLIMATE COUNCIL warns the Western Australian Government is risking the WA environment as it strips its environmental watchdog of the power to consider the climate impacts of new projects.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said: "The WA Environment Minister's claim that climate impacts of mining and other projects could be examined at a Federal level makes no sense. The safeguard mechanism doesn't play any role in assessing new projects. It only regulates emissions once projects are up and running. To take climate pollution out of the WA environment watchdog's remit removes a critical protection for WA communities from climate pollution.
"It's nonsense to look at environmental impacts without considering the biggest impact on our environment right now, which is climate change. The recent fires and massive tree die-offs are just two recent examples of climate change ravaging WA's environment.
"WA has huge potential for renewable energy and clean industry. Hobbling the EPA will make it easier for polluting projects to be approved, when the focus should be on building up clean industries in WA. As a result, West Australians will miss out."
The Climate Council's recent Race to the Top report compared states on a range of climate measures, and found WA ranked behind all states in the switch to clean energy with only 17.6% of electricity coming from renewable sources and is the only state where emissions are projected to rise.
"The West Australian Government is out of step with the 44% of locals who have embraced renewables by putting solar on their rooftops. West Australians know that power from the sun is the lowest-cost and cleanest energy but the state government remains intent on increasing energy bills and climate pollution by extracting more gas."
