Let's fix Australia's environment laws so no project can be approved if its climate impacts will cause serious harm to the environment.

Australia’s environment laws are broken. Believe it or not, our laws currently do not require the Environment Minister to consider the impacts of climate change when approving new projects.

That’s how, since taking office, the Albanese Government has approved 27 fossil fuel projects - including recently provisionally approving Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project to keep polluting until 2070.

That’s 20 years after our national net zero target.  And it’s a massive step backward when the world is calling for urgent action to limit the impacts of climate change.

This year alone, we’ve seen climate change hammer Australia:

• devastating floods on NSW Mid-North Coast and in Queensland
• persistent drought in South Australia
• mass marine deaths from algal blooms along the SA coast

We can’t confront the climate crisis if our laws keep pretending it doesn’t exist.

We urgently need to have climate count in Australia’s environment laws.

Environment Minister Murray Watt is rewriting Australia’s key environmental law - the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. This is our opportunity to make sure the Government must consider the climate impact of every major project before it is approved. 

We're calling for a simple, powerful change:
No project should be approved if its climate impacts will cause serious harm to the environment.

The Australia Institute, the Climate Council and many other experts support this. Even Anthony Albanese himself recognised this gap nearly 20 years ago:

“The glaring gap in matters of national environmental significance is climate change... It is time to act.”— Anthony Albanese, 2005

The time is now.

Australians voted for climate leadership. It’s time the Albanese Government delivered it.

✅ Urgently change our environment laws so projects with serious climate impacts cannot be approved
✅ Stop locking in fossil fuel pollution for decades
✅ Protect Australia’s future 

Sign the petition. Raise your voice. #ClimateMustCount 

Want to do more? - Share this short video on you social media stories, with a link to the petition.
- Follow us and share our posts on Instagram and Facebook.
- Share on socials a short video telling the Government why you want laws NOW to stop approving climate harming projects. Use #ClimateMustCount 

Want to learn more?
Climate Council article about Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project​

Ken Henry at the National Press Club on 16 July 2025 calling for urgent overhaul to environmental protection laws

Environmental Defenders Office briefing note explaining the need for climate reforms in the EPBC Act