Nature Positive: Tanya Plibersek rules out ‘climate trigger’ after Prime Minister’s intervention

Tanya Plibersek has ruled out inserting a “climate trigger” into her Nature Positive laws, falling into line after Anthony Albanese overruled his environment minister to take the Greens-backed policy off the table.

Ms Plibersek finally shut the door on the controversial idea almost a week after revealing it was part of talks with the Greens to pass legislation to set up an Environmental Protection Agency.

Debate on the contentious laws has now been pushed until October, denying Ms Plibersek a major policy win ahead of her global Nature Positive Summit early next month in Sydney.

The senior Labor minister on Thursday attempted to draw a line under a chaotic week of mixed messaging, definitively ruling out a “climate trigger” that miners fear would torpedo projects.

“The Prime Minister and the Australian Labor Party are not going to amend the bill to include what’s called a climate trigger - this is something that the Greens have been asking for,” Ms Plibersek told Sky News.

“We’re not going to do it because the safeguard mechanism is the way that we deal with carbon emissions in this country.

“It’s bringing down carbon emissions … and we’re not going to have two different ways of dealing with carbon pollution, one in the safeguard mechanism and one in the environment law.

“Because that’s just common sense.”

Ms Plibersek’s comments ruling out managing pollution under both climate and environments laws also puts a line through the idea of “climate considerations” in project assessments, which the Greens are offering as an alternative to a firm “climate trigger”.

That all but kills off the prospect of a Labor-Greens deal to pass the EPA laws, given the left-wing party has made some form of “climate trigger” and a crackdown on native forest logging conditions of their support.

Ms Plibersek’s comments follow days of mixed signals between the environment minister and Mr Albanese over Labor’s contentious Green agenda. .

Asked on Thursday if she and Mr Albanese, her long-time internal rival, were “cool”, she said: “Yeah, always”.

Labor decided against debating the EPA in the Senate for the second week in row, pushing the laws off until the next sittings, which start on October 8.

It means Ms Plibersek faces the awkward scenario of struggling to pass environment protection laws at same time she is hosting the inaugural global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney from October 8-10.

According to promotional material, the summit – co-hosted with the NSW Government - will bring together leaders from governments, the private sector, academic, green groups and First Nations bodies to “accelerate collective action to drive investment in nature and strengthen activities to protect and repair our environment”.

With a deal with the Greens and crossbench appearing extremely unlikely, Labor’s best hope of passing the Bill rests with the Coalition.

The Opposition has heavily criticised the Nature Positive Plan but is yet to finalise a position on the EPA, with shadow environment minister Jonno Duniam still in negotiations with Ms Plibersek.

Mr Albanese’s offer to gut EPA so far hasn’t been enough to appease the Opposition, despite industry encouraging Peter Dutton to accept the deal.

Ms Plibersek said she hadn’t given up hope of delivering the EPA, a promise Labor took to the 2022 election.

“My door’s still open. I’m continuing to talk with Senators, and I’d like to see this Bill passed,” she said.

WA Liberal senator Michaelia Cash said Labor couldn’t be trusted not to introduce a “climate trigger” after the next Federal Election, particularly if it was forced in a power-sharing parliament with the Greens.

“Beware a future Labor-Greens government,” she said.

“They will be delivering to Australia a whole lot of extras that the Australian people will know nothing about before the election.”

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said Ms Plibersek’s rejection of a “climate trigger” was “absolutely disgraceful”.