source : the age
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of national news for Wednesday, September 2. Here’s what is making headlines today.
Australia’s biggest business group has warned MPs against restricting data centre construction, telling a Senate inquiry the country “needs a data centre plan, not a data centre panic”.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (ACCI) submission to the inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres says blanket restrictions, moratoriums or one-size-fits-all rules would drive investment offshore without solving energy, water or planning constraints.
It comes as communities across the country fight new developments over water use, noise and consultation, and as the inquiry’s chair, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, argues for a moratorium on new builds until regulation catches up.
ACCI is calling for “source-neutral” energy decisions for data centres, arguing a diverse energy mix delivers better prices and reliability. That position aligns it with the Queensland and NT governments.
Chief executive Andrew McKellar said Australia could seize its share of the AI opportunity, but only if economic settings were correctly set.
“We also must ensure Australia has policy settings that enable the responsible growth of data centres, not stand in their way,” he said.
China has fully reopened the only road leading to the Gyirong border crossing into Nepal a week after it was torn apart by catastrophic flooding, allowing heavy machinery to reach the core disaster zone for the first time.
Rescue teams worked around the clock to rebuild the G216 national highway after debris flows washed away sections of the road when a glacier collapse unleashed mudslides and floods through river systems on both sides of the China-Nepal border on August 26.
Before the road reopened on Wednesday, China had been air-dropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers, while soldiers used life-detection equipment to search for the missing, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
The broadcaster also showed footage of multiple rescue teams and excavators carrying out intensive searches for people still missing.
China reported on Sunday that 546 people remained unaccounted for in Tibet, including 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries, while the death toll stood at 16. The death toll in Nepal surpassed 1000 on Wednesday. Across the two nations, 38 Australians remain missing.
Reuters
Another plastic recycling company has collapsed, while Environment Minister Murray Watt has flagged he will not introduce long-promised national packaging reform in this term of parliament.
Adelaide-based Recycling Plastics Australia, which processes 20,000 tonnes of plastic annually, has gone into voluntary administration. The company previously received a $20 million grant from the federal government.
The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, the Australian Council of Recycling, and the Boomerang Alliance today issued a joint call for national packaging laws to deal with about 7 million tonnes of packaging every year, about 40 per cent of which is destined for landfill.
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water has sent correspondence, seen by this masthead, to those who responded to a consultation for Design for Kerbside Recyclability Grading Framework that Commonwealth-led reform is off the table for this term.
Humanity has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst of global warming’s harms, according to the United Nations.
Now the world must figure out how to get temperatures below the danger zone and back to safety, officials say.
The Earth is soon going to exceed the safe temperature threshold agreed upon by the world in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate because of warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, according to a bleak first-of-its-kind report issued by the United Nations Environment Program Wednesday.
They say warming will peak at around 1.8 degrees about mid-19th century levels in the best-case scenario, or at roughly 2.6 degrees under current policies.
NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane has condemned the government’s pill-testing expansion, and said she would wind back the program if elected.
“I don’t think we should be permissive. I ultimately don’t believe it will save lives,” she told a press conference earlier today.
“The way we save lives is to send a very clear and unequivocal message that any way of taking drugs is not OK.”
An independent evaluation of the government’s 12-month trial concluded it led to a major reduction in harm for young people.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labelled a journalist “disrespectful” for not including Pacific leaders in the calculation of how many world leaders are attending an Australian-organised pre-COP event next month.
Asked whether the summit would be “money well spent” considering only five non-Pacific leaders would be in attendance, Albanese interrupted the journalist to say: “With respect, you are being so disrespectful to the Pacific leaders who are here”.
“We need to actually have some respect for the process and respect for our Pacific leaders, and Australia has an absolute interest in engaging with the Pacific,” Albanese told a Palau press conference.
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen earlier in the press conference pushed back on criticism, saying world leaders had not attended previous pre-COP negotiations.
Albanese also defended the turnout, saying there was not an earlier expectation of a large contingent of world leaders to be in attendance.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has denied that Pacific leaders are frustrated with Australia’s approval of fossil fuel projects, saying the country is respected for its role in combatting climate change.
The question came from a journalist who referenced Resources Minister Madeleine King’s ceremonial opening of gas fracking works in the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory, who said Pacific leaders looked to Albanese and said, “you are the problem”.
Albanese responded: “No, they, they don’t do that. Australia is highly regarded when it comes to climate change, and the talking down of Australia does not happen from outside Australia. I’ll make that point. The Pacific leaders have respect for the position that we’ve taken, and they also understand with the transition because they’re dealing with it as well.
“That the transition can’t happen overnight; that it requires strategies and policies to be put in place. And one of the things that renewables requires is firming capacity, and gas has a role to play in firming capacity. We’ve made that position very clear, and people understand that that is the circumstance,” Albanese said.
The Greens and climate activists have criticised the Beetaloo project as a “climate bomb”, accusing the government of hypocrisy in its stance on climate change and emissions.
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has joined Albanese in defending the pre-COP event in Fiji and Tuvalu that he has taken an organising role in, saying thousands of delegates will be in attendance.
“Pre-COP’s role is to set the agenda for COP and to help build momentum for some of the important items that we are championing at COP 31. I can confirm there will be around 3000, 4000 attendees. This is no small undertaking,” Bowen told the Palau press conference this afternoon.
“We have 120, more than 120 international journalists already registered to attend to see what’s happening at pre-COP. So this is a key opportunity for the Pacific. As the PM said, it is not normally a leader-level event.
“There was no leader at the pre-COP in Brazil, or in Dubai, or in Egypt, or in Azerbaijan. None. The Pacific said to us we thought it would be good to invite some leaders. We’ve done that.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the government did not expect many world leaders to attend the Australian-organised pre-COP summits, after it was revealed that just five heads of state based outside the Pacific will be in attendance.
“We always anticipated when it comes to pre-COP events, there normally aren’t lots of leaders at it. There’ll be ministerial level [attendance],” Albanese told a press conference on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau.
“The fact that the pre-COP is being held in Fiji with side trip to Tuvalu as well is really welcomed, because it will provide a focus on what is happening in the Pacific, and the entry fee for credibility at the Pacific Islands Forum and for bilateral engagement in the Pacific is taking climate change seriously.”
Just five leaders from outside the Pacific are expected to attend the Australia-organised United Nations climate event in Fiji and Tuvalu next month, despite energetic efforts by the Albanese government to secure attendees.
The pre-COP event was organised as part of a compromise deal between Australia and Turkey that will see the main event held in Antalya, Turkey, rather than Adelaide.
Fiji Foreign Minister Sakiasi Ditoka announced on Tuesday afternoon that leaders from Antigua and Barbuda, Cabo Verde, Thailand, Maldives and Timor-Leste had confirmed their attendance at the pre-COP event.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has welcomed the news that a further five Australians have been found safe following last week’s catastrophic flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet.
“Amidst all of this tragedy, we are seeing some positive news,” he said from Palau, while also recognising the ongoing grief of the families of the remaining 38 missing Australians.
“That’s 38 families, 38 people we hold grave fears for, we hold hope for further great positive news.”
“Our C17 aircraft either has landed or is about to land with aid supplies in Nepal as well. We think of all of the families at this difficult time, and also for the broader Nepalese-Australian community that is large and growing larger.”
Meanwhile, Nepal has urged international travellers not to abandon the Himalayas, declaring the country open for tourism as it continues to assess the human and economic toll from catastrophic floods that killed hundreds and left thousands missing.
With Bloomberg
