Recovery Assistance Photos Ops Aren't Climate Leadership

It’s the first week of summer (December 2025) and we’re already living the script: dangerous heat, fires ripping through communities, homes destroyed, evacuations, and governments activating disaster assistance. PM Anthony Albanese is already out there posting photos spruiking government support.

Yes, recovery support matters. People need immediate help, and they deserve it.

But here’s the brutal truth: recovery cheques won't stop the next fire. Prevention will. And that means cutting emissions fast, not expanding the very industries that load the atmosphere with more heat.

The carbon ledger Labor doesn’t want on the evening news

Since forming government in 2022, the Albanese Government has approved 32 coal and gas projects. The Climate Council estimates the combined lifetime pollution from these projects - counting both the emissions produced on-site and the emissions released when the exported coal and gas are burned - will exceed 6.5 billion tonnes of CO₂-e.

That number isn’t a rounding error. It’s a deliberate choice: to keep expanding fossil fuels while our continent burns. And yes, it includes exports. That’s the point. The atmosphere doesn’t care where the coal is burned. Heat is heat whether it’s emitted in Newcastle, Osaka or Shanghai. The Climate Council explicitly counts the combustion pollution because it is the predictable, intended consequence of approving new fossil fuel production.

6.5 billion tonnes is equivalent to the total emissions of all Aussie families for over 30 years. That’s the scale we're talking about - while Albo gets a chance to spruik assistance through disaster payments after the fact.

moral responsibility sits at the top

No one's is claiming the PM personally signs off on every approval. But the responsibility is still his. Because this is the government he leads, the priorities he sets, and the political cover that makes the approvals “normal”. When a government chooses to expand fossil fuels, it's also choosing:

• more heat in the system,

• more extreme fire weather,

• more pressure on emergency services,

• more trauma for families,

• and more risk pushed onto our children who haven't consented to any of it.

That isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s a failure of duty.

And the defence you hear - “don’t worry, the Safeguard Mechanism will handle it” - doesn’t cut the mustard. The Climate Council’s analysis is blunt: there's no federal law that allows a coal or gas project to be stopped because of its climate harm. So we end up with a grotesque pattern: governments get photo opportunities to fund recovery with one hand while locking in the damage with the other.

What leadership should look like (starting now)

If the PM really wants Aussies to believe his recovery rhetoric, he needs to match it with prevention:

1. Stop approving new coal and gas projects. Not “offset”, not “abate later”, not “approve with conditions” - just stop.

2. Put climate into our national environment laws so projects can be refused on climate grounds. If it can’t be stopped because it’s dangerous, then the law is broken.

3. Choose kids and Country over fossil fuel donors and exporters. Because what we’re living through this week isn’t an anomaly. It’s the bill arriving. And it's going to get much worse.

Photo from PM Albo's Twitter feed.