'Massive failure' for environment laws without trigger

An attempt to sell proposed environmental laws to the public has backfired as more details emerge.

Big companies will need to disclose wider emissions to investors from next year under climate financial disclosure laws.

But the broader climate impact of specific projects won't be assessed under the draft environmental laws that federal officials workshopped at a public webinar on Tuesday.

“What we heard is alarming on many fronts,” Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Georgina Woods said.

“What is needed is a package of reforms that can stop coal and gas projects driving wildlife to extinction, but these reforms won't do that.”

Proposed amendments cover direct emissions from industrial facilities and not the broader emissions from products that add up through supply chains – domestically and offshore.

Critics continue to urge Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to fix national environment law by putting climate at its heart.

A so-called “climate trigger” would require the federal minister to block projects that fail to protect a safe and liveable climate for people, habitats and wildlife.

“We're astonished that the proposed reforms do not contain a climate trigger,” said Lucy Manne, representing grassroots organisation 350.org.

“These reforms won't even require proper assessment of full life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions. It's a massive failure,” she said.

Hannah Ekin from the Central Australia Frack Free Alliance in Alice Springs said what she heard on the call “really escalated our concerns about the direction these reforms are heading”.

“We fear that there will be a further sting in the tail and that the government may also be preparing to transfer many key decisions back to state and territory governments.”

Critics were also concerned community consultation on contentious projects would be weakened it if was put in the hands of developers rather than government.

Some said broad ministerial powers to allow undefined “unacceptable impacts” to be approved on vague grounds such as national interest would make the environmental crisis worse.

Jo Lynch from Hunter Community Environment Centre said Australia needed strong habitat protections that prevented clearing by major projects.

“We need decisions to be guided by science, not by politics, so having a ministerial override on decisions based on vague concepts like 'the national interest' is incredibly worrying,” she said.

Ms Woods said a proposal to implement a “pay to destroy” scheme of restoration payments would simply allow cashed-up coal and gas giants to effectively buy approval to clear-fell irreplaceable habitat.