Fix nature standards, don’t use new laws to facilitate logging

In an Australian first, the Federal Court has accepted the application by a UN Special Rapporteur to make submissions in the Australian Conservation Foundation’s legal challenges to the extension of Woodside’s controversial North West Shelf gas hub.

The budget contains at least seven times more spending on initiatives that damage nature and the climate than it allocates to climate and nature protection.

Despite the company's latest PR push, Woodside’s Browse proposal is an economic and environmental disaster that should be stopped in its tracks.

With the federal budget under a week away, the Australian Conservation Foundation has highlighted five things the government should spend money on to protect nature and the climate – and five moves that would save a heap of public money.

As now proposed, the legal test for consistency with the standard will be met if a developer merely confirms they complied with some principles and followed certain processes. There’s no requirement for these processes to actually deliver the outcomes and objectives expressed in the standard.  

The same corporations driving the cost-of-living crisis are driving the climate crisis. Australian gas sent offshore returns home as bushfires, heatwaves, floods and cyclones.

Planned ‘protection statements’ for five threatened species are a welcome but modest step, while much more is needed to protect and recover threatened species in next month’s federal budget.

Conservationists and Traditional Owners are rallying outside today’s annual general meeting of gas giant Woodside in Perth.

As gas giant Santos holds its annual general meeting in Adelaide, new polling shows nearly three in four South Australians believe gas companies should be made to pay for environmental damage they cause.

This terrible oil refinery fire, which is now spewing toxic smoke into Geelong and surrounds, is another reminder that fossil fuels are risky, polluting and dangerous.

New RepuTex modelling, commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Climate Council, shows new highly polluting coal and gas projects are an escalating risk to the Safeguard Mechanism. 

The Australian gas export industry is scrambling to keep operations open as category four Cyclone Narelle batters the WA coast.

ACF has welcomed a landmark Senate report into climate disinformation, warning lies are already harming communities and demanding tougher action to stop falsehoods derailing climate progress. 

We urge the Albanese government, in partnership with States and Territories, to impose strict, measurable obligations on the tech titans to make sure they do their share, consult properly and don’t drain our resources or derail the clean energy transition.

The federal government should immediately place a 25% levy on all Australian gas exports.