State and territory environmental regulators are under pressure to use their approvals and licensing systems to make businesses cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Prepare for national biodiversity standards, more federal-state climate change cooperation, and the start of a new law that allows companies to be prosecuted for breaching a general environmental duty.
Santos has presented the Independent Planning Commission with a new legal opinion on ecologically sustainable development and carbon emissions, as it seeks approval for its Narrabri coal seam gas project.
Aspects of the Northern Territory's new assessment and approval law can serve as a role model for other jurisdictions, according to NT EPA Chair Dr Paul Vogel.
Including a greenhouse gas trigger in the EPBC Act would be unwarranted and inappropriate, according to the department administered by Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor.