Climate change
Tim READ (Brunswick) (13:07): Last week a paper by Fretwell in the journal Communications Earth & Environment reported that thousands of emperor penguin chicks died last spring in what was termed a catastrophic breeding failure. All chicks were lost from four out of five breeding sites on the Bellingshausen Sea. Also last week the Andrews Labor government announced an agreement with AGL Energy to keep the Loy Yang A coal-fired power station open until 2035. What has that got to do with penguins? The fuzzy down that makes these chicks so cute is not waterproof, and because of climate change all the sea ice melted underneath the chicks, and they fell into the sea and drowned or froze. It was not breeding failure that killed these baby penguins, it was our failure. The government’s structured transition agreement with AGL for Loy Yang A apparently includes a risk-sharing mechanism. They might not know it, but the penguins are sharing a fair bit of that risk. Victoria can provide certainty for workers and reliable energy by investing in an urgent transition to renewable energy. We just need the political will to put people, planet and penguins over profits.