Climate change and environment

South Australia is already living through the climate crisis. Drought, bushfires, floods, extreme heat and the recent algal bloom have damaged ecosystems, livelihoods and public health. These impacts are not unavoidable natural disasters. They are the result of political decisions that prioritise corporate profit over people and the environment.

Despite declaring a climate emergency, the South Australian Labor government continues to support fossil fuels. In 2024–25, the state provided $37 million in assistance to fossil fuel companies, with long-term commitments worth $98 million, while approving new gas expansions and openly courting the oil and gas industry. Santos, the state’s largest fossil fuel producer and one of Australia’s biggest polluters, continues to exert enormous influence despite paying no corporate tax over the past decade. In 2023, Energy and Mining Minister Tom Koutsantonis told an oil and gas conference that the “South Australian government is at your disposal … we are here to help, and we are here to offer you a pathway to the future”. Labor’s reliance on “net zero by 2050”, carbon offsets and carbon capture schemes allows major polluters to keep polluting and locks in decades of further warming.

At the same time, the Labor government is deepening Australia’s involvement in AUKUS, including nuclear-powered submarines and plans to impose radioactive nuclear waste on the Lefevre Peninsula. Nuclear power is neither clean nor safe, and its risks fall disproportionately on working-class and First Nations communities.

The climate crisis is a product of a system that treats nature as something to be exploited for private profit. Labor and the Liberals have shown they will not challenge this system. Real climate action means reorganising society around human need, ecological limits and democratic control. SA Socialists are committed to action based on what is necessary to avert climate catastrophe, not what is acceptable to corporate interests.

What we think

1. Climate change is a direct product of the capitalist world economy, which turns everything in the natural environment into a resource exploitable for private profits.
2. Climate change cannot be addressed through market mechanisms; it requires a comprehensive restructuring of the economy.
3. The high concentration of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere means that “net-zero emissions” will not be enough to curtail dangerous global warming; net-negative emissions will be required to reduce greenhouse gas levels.
4. Nuclear power is neither clean nor renewable.
5. The effects of climate change are disproportionately felt by people on low incomes; their lives and livelihoods need to be protected not only from changes to the climate, but during the transition to a new economy.
6. The economic burden of dealing with climate change must fall primarily on those who have profited from destroying the environment: the rich and the big polluters.

We’ll fight to

1. Establish public ownership and democratic control over the energy industry, ending private profiteering from essential infrastructure.
2. Accelerate the shift to 100% renewables by 2028 and establish a new publicly-controlled renewable energy operator with a charter to deliver cheap, reliable power while creating tens of thousands secure, well-paid public sector jobs.
3. Transition to a zero emissions economy by 2035 and a permanent net-negative emissions economy by 2040.
4. Immediately ban all new fossil fuel extraction, infrastructure approvals and public subsidies in South Australia. Prohibit all new gas projects and phase out existing gas power and supply for industry and households by 2030, with no new gas connections.
5. Guarantee alternative secure jobs and comprehensive retraining for workers from the fossil fuel industry.
6. Increase investment in walking, cycling and public transport.
7. Win justice for those displaced by climate change.
8. Establish an urgent program of ecosystem restoration, sustainable farming and biodiversity protection. In cities, initiate a massive urban greening program to expand canopy cover and reduce heat stress.
9. Introduce new regulations for urban planning and design to ensure environmental efficiency, sustainability and climate resilience in all new developments.
10. End uranium mining and halt any attempt to introduce parts of the nuclear fuel cycle to South Australia, including nuclear waste storage.
11. End the profiteering of water trading and crackdown on water theft by agribusiness and mining, treating water as a public good, not a commodity.
12. Invest in publicly-owned recycling and green tech facilities to reduce waste going to landfill, and remove private operators from the waste industry.
13. Repeal Labor’s anti-protest laws and defend the right to demonstrate in defence of the environment.
14. Kick fossil fuel companies out of schools, universities and public institutions, and end all forms of corporate greenwashing and sponsorship.
15. Impose a levy on fossil fuel producers to fund climate adaptation and disaster response, including clean-up, relief and research related to the algae bloom, and income support for workers who have lost hours or employment due to climate impacts.