Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the recent national climate risk assessment for Australia which identifies Tasmania as a state that is highly exposed to climate hazards, where severe climate impacts will be felt across all regions by at least 2050. It recognises that Tasmania has high vulnerability to flooding and saltwater intrusion, as well as to bushfire and extreme weather events.
We understand, as the risk assessment does, that climate change is already having impacts on Tasmania. Tasmanians know that, farmers know that, communities know that. We see it, and its impacts of extreme events. What is predicted is the escalating, cascading and cumulative impacts of multiple events in a row that will increase stress on our water supplies, food production systems, public infrastructure, environment and ecosystem health, on personal health, on housing conditions, the impact of housing and the type of building we have in order to be able to survive increasingly hot summers, on the emergency services doing everything they can to protect us in these extreme events, community services and of course, business viability.
The Greens are particularly concerned about the response of the Tasmanian government. The Tasmanian Greenhouse Gas Accounts, released just last year, show that although Tasmania has net zero emissions, our absolute emissions have been increasing. We used to be the lowest emitter in the country until 2022. We were surpassed by South Australia in 2022 and by Victoria this year, 2025. Per capita, Tasmania no longer has the lowest emissions in the country. On the current trend, New South Wales will also shortly pass us.
In other words, we are resting on a situation of historically having a large carbon sink from our enormous forests and the protection gained through the Tasmanian Forest Agreement. That has protected forest, has soaked up carbon and is the reason Tasmania today has net-zero emissions. However, nothing is happening under this government. There is no action to bring down our emissions and, most importantly, there are no actions to have an adaptation strategy. There is no mandated adaptation strategy. The Greens are incredibly concerned about the fact that there is no comprehensive response for communities, businesses or farmers.
The Premier this morning talked about the fact that the government is doing things and is interested in what’s happening for farmers. I’m sure they are, but that is not a statewide strategy, that is not whole-of-government with local government and state government. It’s not with businesses, industries and communities and all the other groups that need to be involved together, talking about how we become more resilient –
Ms Ogilvie – But we’re doing that with the Emission Reduction Planning (ERPs).
Dr WOODRUFF – to the climate. We have sea level rise, coastal inundation and the national –
Ms Ogilvie – But we’re doing that with the ERPs, so that’s just not correct.
Dr WOODRUFF – Can you please stop the member from interjecting while I’m speaking? The National Climate Risk Assessment showed Launceston as a case study because of the impacts: up to two metres in sea level rise are predicted there by 2090, but we already see the impacts of climate change on flooding in Launceston.
It is no longer OK to have a siloed approach to responding to climate change. We can’t leave it all up to the government. It’s not just the state government’s job, it’s everybody’s job, but the state government must drive it. We must have a stronger climate act. It was very disappointing last night that government members voted against Ms O’Connor’s motion in the Legislative Council that was passed by everybody else to strengthen our climate act. We will be pushing the government to strengthen the act, to have an adaptation strategy, because we have to have the support for communities, businesses, farmers and local government to respond to the fact that climate change is getting more extreme. We need to step up and we need to take it seriously.
