Labor has unveiled the Future Gas Strategy, a new gas policy to open up new gas fields and continue our gas exports.

Minister for Energy and Northern Australia Madeleine King described the policy’s release as “based on facts and data”. However, Dr Graeme McLeay asks: What facts? Whose data?

The fact is that greenhouse gases are rising year on year and are now higher than at any period in human history. The fact is that climate change, driven by this rise of greenhouse gases, is accelerating.

Climate change is here now, it is impacting our lives, it is destabilising geopolitics, it threatens our health and future, and it is both global and local.

Labor has made a political calculation that bowing to the demands of the fossil fuel industry is less risky electorally than urgent action on climate change is unfortunate for us all, especially young people who are losing hope and growing cynical of politics.

It’s incumbent on our leaders and on all of us to address the climate emergency as an emergency.

The stakes are high.

Dr Graeme McLeay is a retired anaesthetist and member of Doctors for the Environment Australia. Married with two adult children, he writes on climate change and air quality.

Read the full opinion piece published on 23 May in Independent Australia