Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told business leaders gathered for the BCA\u2019s annual dinner in Sydney on Monday night that the Government would introduce legislation for stronger environmental protection, more efficient assessments and greater transparency in decision-making before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
BCA chief executive Bran Black said the new Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) regime couldn\u2019t come soon enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmbition matters, but so, too, does delivery,\u201d he told the dinner.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I stress that that delivery is no more important than with respect to getting the project approvals process right with effective EPBC reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe significant capital investment required (to cut emissions) will amount to nothing if it gets bogged down in the current approval delays.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"BCA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/e3dc2afa08fc807043a6b228b7adf6799e69c7e6.jpg\")
Camera IconBCA Chief Executive Bran Black, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and BCA President Geoff Culbert arrive at the Business Council of Australia\u2019s 2024 Annual Dinner in Sydney., Tuesday, September 17, 2024. (AAP Image\/Flavio Brancaleone) NO ARCHIVING Credit: FLAVIO BRANCALEONE\/AAPIMAGE<\/p>\n
As the Government prepares to unveil its 2035 emissions reduction target, McKinsey analysis for the BCA showed that aiming for a 60 or 70 per cent cut would require governments and the private sector to inject upwards of $395 billion into projects.<\/p>\n
The Climate Change Authority is widely expected to recommend a target of 65-75 per cent below 2005 emissions levels.<\/p>\n
Whatever the target, it\u2019s likely to require a big ramp up in the amount of renewable energy being built, which again comes back to streamlining environmental approvals.<\/p>\n
Senator Watt will tell a Smart Energy Conference in Brisbane on Tuesday that increased use of regional planning is among the measures the Government hopes will speed up the rollout of renewables.<\/p>\n
The idea is to examine a region as a whole to identify areas of high environmental sensitivity and provide better information for planning and decision-making.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis approach \u2013 identifying \u2018go\u2019 and \u2018no go\u2019 zones in various regions upfront \u2013 would shift the focus from project-by-project development, to effective planning for our environment and for sustainable development,\u201d Senator Watt will say, according to an excerpt of his speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow is the time to take this to the next level, to not only provide certainty for communities and industry, but to also better protect the environment and ensure we reach our renewable energy targets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The announcement comes as the Government moves towards unveiling new environmental laws before the end of November.<\/p>\n
Senator Watt and his team have been in regular talks with business, resources and green groups, including a \u201cquiet\u201d standing meeting with a small circle that includes Rio Tinto, BHP and the Australian Conservation Foundation.<\/p>\n
The latter group announced on Monday that former Greens leader Adam Bandt, who lost his seat to Labor in May, would take over as its chief executive in January once incumbent Kelly O\u2019Shanassy departs.<\/p>\n
The appointment puts Mr Bandt at the helm of ACF just as the new laws will be making their way through the parliament.<\/p>\n
Mr Albanese has frequently pointed the finger at the \u201cno-alition\u201d of the Greens, Liberal and Nationals for blocking efforts to overhaul the same laws in the previous parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big business has warned the hundreds of billions of dollars in capital investment needed to drive emissions cuts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2324,64,63,99,75,2322,44,84,128],"class_list":["post-129036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-environment","tag-federal-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}