Environment Minister Murray Watt is known as Labor’s political “fixer” – Australians have given him the opportunity to fix something for us, and our planet.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) was enacted in 2000 as the country’s first attempt at a holistic approach to balance the desire for growth with the need for environmental protection.

At the same time, the world was beginning global efforts to reduce emissions and stabilise the climate.

The Howard government failed to integrate action on climate with protecting and restoring nature. It was a failure repeated by successive governments.

The original EPBC Act did not include a mechanism for dealing with growing emissions and climate change. But Australia had at least signalled its intention to be part of global efforts to stabilise the climate, with then-environment minister Robert Hill signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

Hill always stuck to his guns on the environment. At a fossil fuel-sponsored conference in Canberra, Hill took the floor and, staring down the captains of industry, said: “I have stated many times, and will do so again, that Australia accepts the balance of the scientific evidence which suggests that human activity is accelerating the increase in the Earth’s average temperature.”

It was a backbone not found on this issue with the then-prime minister, John Howard. No doubt under pressure from fossil fuel interests, the PM refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which his environment minister had signed the country on to.

Howard told Parliament on World Environment Day that, “For us to ratify Kyoto would cost us jobs and damage our industry”, and that, “the national interest does not lie in ratifying Kyoto”.

Hardly anyone remembers this history – but now, 25 years later, Australia’s natural world is suffering the consequences of failing to approach climate change and biodiversity as two sides of the same coin.

The failure of successive governments to care for our natural environment has brought devastation upon our rivers, our trees, our oceans, and our wildlife.

According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, there are now 2245 Australian ecosystems, plants and animals recognised nationally as threatened with extinction. This includes the regent honeyeater, swift parrot, northern hairy-nosed wombat, and koala. In the past 25 years, we have lost an area of tree coverage equivalent to half the state of Victoria.

At the last election, Australians voted for climate action. The LNP, full of climate sceptics and nuclear ideologues, was overwhelmingly rejected by Australian voters. This Parliament is the most progressive I have seen since I was a child watching Gough Whitlam on my nan’s black-and-white TV.

The opportunity for strong environmental action under this Labor government, in this Parliament, is almost as big as the challenges our climate faces. Recent signs from the government, however, indicate that the Albanese government is set to squib this opportunity.

The need for an activity or project to be assessed under the EPBC Act is triggered only when that activity affects a matter of national environmental significance – it still does not include climate impacts or high emissions as one of those matters. It should.

There are two pathways through the Senate for the new EPBC legislation – via the Greens or via the Coalition. The minister seems to have chosen the latter as the preferred negotiating partner, and ruled out including a climate trigger in the legislation.

Opting to negotiate with the Coalition on the environment is opting to work with the very climate sceptics Australians just rejected.

Minister Watt appears to be protecting his own identity as a “fixer” over his actual job of protecting our future. Whether or not Minister Watt is the government’s “fixer” matters little today to people outside the political bubble.

In fact, most Australians probably don’t even know who Murray Watt is. If you’re reading this article, you’re probably more interested in politics and/or the environment than 99 per cent of other Australians. How many previous environment ministers can you name?

OK – that was quick.

Now think of your political or environmental heroes. They will likely be those who rose above retail politics and secured long-lasting policy reform – like Bob Carr reserving vast hectares of wilderness in NSW, Bob Hawke saving the Franklin, Daniel Andrews finally ending native forest logging in Victoria, and, of course, Bob Brown, who has been central to most of the country’s environmental wins for five decades.

This government and multiple commentators have spent years talking about the political “climate wars”.

The real climate war has been unfolding around us – the megafires of 2019, extended droughts, algal blooms in South Australia, and more.

Minister Watt has an opportunity to fix this – let’s hope he’s up to the job.

This article was originally published in The New Daily.