A slew of unmeasured methane leaks from platforms and pipelines off Australia’s coast have released large amounts of the dangerous greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, but we will never know exactly how much, and it will certainly not be included in Australia’s emissions calculations. Methane, which is otherwise known euphemistically as “natural gas,” is more than 80 times worse than carbon dioxide for global warming.

Friday 4 November 2022, Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt) - To stem runaway climate change, COP27 must steer away from seductive-sounding ‘nature-based solutions’ and geoengineering fixes, and instead focus on cutting fossil fuel emissions at source, say Friends of the Earth International on the eve of the UN climate talks.

August 4, 2022. The House of Representatives has passed the Climate Change 2022 bill. After nine years of delay and denial by the Coalition government, Friends of the Earth Australia welcomes the rapid action by the Albanese government to enact it’s signature climate commitment.

The Labor government, the Greens, community independents and Liberal MP Bridget Archer all voted to support the bill. Sadly, the Coalition opted to remain on the wrong side of both the science and history and voted against the bill.

Friends of the Earth Australia welcomes the release of the ​​national State of the Environment report. Although required to produce them every five years, the previous Coalition government held up the release of the report, delaying Australia’s ability to respond to the biodiversity crisis outlined in the document.

Australia has produced a national state of environment report every five years since 1995. They assess every aspect of Australia’s environment and heritage, covering rivers, oceans, air, land and urban areas. They show that our natural environment is in continuous decline.

This report is the first to consider how our declining natural environment is impacting on the health and well-being of Australians. It is also the first to include Indigenous co-authors. 

Once again, the IPCC’s findings have become a political battleground. Climate justice campaigners fear that climate scientists’ core message – that we must make an urgent just transition away from fossil fuels to limit the risk of runaway warming – is being undermined by the legitimisation of a 1.5 degree overshoot in modelled scenarios, and pathways that include unproven and speculative technologies to supposedly cool the planet later down the line.

Activists and experts from Friends of the Earth International, the world’s largest grassroots environmental federation, gave their responses.

After almost two years, the Australian National Contact Point has made a determination on the international climate complaint by Bushfire survivors and Friends of the Earth Australia. The complainants express their disappointment that the determination finds ANZ’s practices are ‘consistent’ with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises.

With the new Omicron strain of the COVID virus threatening the world and other ongoing COVID outbreaks, the need to end the global vaccine apartheid is more urgent than ever.   

Less than 5% of people in most low-income countries have received COVID-19 vaccines, while rich countries are reaching 80% or more. Millions are dying while new more infectious strains of the virus develop.

An Essential Media poll released today shows that 62 per cent of Australians believe the Australian government should support the effort to temporarily waive World Trade Organisation patent rules for COVID-19 vaccines to enable quicker and fairer access to vaccines for low-income countries.

Rio Tinto and Mayur Resources were awarded the Corporate Cane Toad Award for their roles in contributing to environmental destruction and/or human rights violations worldwide [1]. The winners were announced at a ceremony in Melbourne after a month of public voting in which over 1000 people voted for the six companies nominated.

Friends of the Earth wins climate case against Shell.