Parliament House event represents an effort to undermine climate action, environmental group 350 Australia says
Environmental campaigners say a cocktail night involving the fossil fuel industry and federal politicians represents an “insidious” lobbying effort to undermine climate action.
The pro-coal Liberal MP Craig Kelly and Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon will host a cocktail event at Parliament House to discuss carbon capture and storage with industry leaders on Wednesday night.
An invite seen by the Guardian was sent out by Kelly and Fitzgibbon, who chair the parliamentary friends of resources, together with representatives of Santos and the carbon capture body CO2CRC. The event is described as a “cocktail event to mark the inaugural meeting of the CO2CRC Carbon Capture and Storage Policy Forum”.
That forum features companies such as BHP, Chevron, Coal21, ENI, Exxon, the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, JPower, Shell and Woodside.The pro-coal Liberal MP Craig Kelly and Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon will host a cocktail event at Parliament House to discuss carbon capture and storage with industry leaders on Wednesday night.
An invite seen by the Guardian was sent out by Kelly and Fitzgibbon, who chair the parliamentary friends of resources, together with representatives of Santos and the carbon capture body CO2CRC. The event is described as a “cocktail event to mark the inaugural meeting of the CO2CRC Carbon Capture and Storage Policy Forum”.
The invite says the forum aims to “work with governments, industry and other stakeholders” to create “suitable policy settings and a regulatory framework to accelerate the development and deployment of CCS technology in Australia”.
“CCS has the potential to create a new wealth-creating industry for Australia, breathe new life into existing industries by reducing carbon emissions, and underpin the development of new energies such as hydrogen,” the invite said.
Environment group 350 Australia says the event shows the need to “crack down on the undue influence of lobby groups on our democracy”.
The 350 Australia chief executive, Lucy Manne, said the event was an “insidious effort by the fossil fuel lobby to undermine action on the climate crisis”.
Manne said carbon capture and storage had proven a “pipe dream of the coal and gas lobby” and diverted millions away from proven renewables.
“The climate crisis has been felt across the country this past summer, with communities suffering due to extreme bushfires, drought, floods and heatwaves,” she said.
“It’s outrageous that instead of working out how to rapidly transition to the renewable energy future the vast majority of Australians and businesses want, our elected representatives will tonight be sipping cocktails with the coal lobby and discussing how to extend the life of dirty coal-burning power stations.”
Such lobbying is generally hidden from the public unless revealed by the media. The Fitzgibbon-Kelly cocktail event was reported in News Corp papers.
It does not appear in any of the transparency measures governing lobbying. Federal ministers are also not required to disclose who they have met with, unlike in states like Queensland and New South Wales.
“One of the things that we’re calling for is the politicians to pledge for a whole range of transparency reforms so we have much better transparency around donations,” Manne told the Guardian.
“We also want more transparency around lobbying. We do have a lobbying register. But it really doesn’t give us a true picture of who’s lobbying our politicians.”
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