Make Big Polluters Pay

Communities for Climate Compensation

Who we are: ICAG has joined a local network, Ipswich Citizens for Climate Compensation, which is part of a national network called Communities for Climate Compensation. We are bringing this issue to Council because we believe local government is on the frontline of climate impacts — and should not be left to carry the costs of climate disasters. We want to work together on a solution, based on fairness and common sense, that benefits the council and all residents of our community.

The problem facing local governments: Local governments are facing higher costs related to climate disaster recovery and risk reduction. For example, the 2022 flood in Ipswich caused more than $120 million in losses. In South East Queensland, costs were nearly $8 billion, just for that one event. The 2020 Springfield Halloween Hailstorm caused about $1.1 billion in damage. Meanwhile, the Australian Government has proposed changes to the current Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements which would significantly reduce the funding provided to Queensland in the wake of a disaster. As catastrophic climate events happen with greater frequency and increasing intensity, the exposure of costs to council budgets will only increase. The Insurance Council of Australia has recently released a report calling for federal government to improve the way that disaster recovery and climate adaptation efforts are paid for in the face of increasing effects of climate change. 

The Principle: Fairness and Polluters Pay: This issue raises a basic question of fairness. Communities and councils are currently paying for climate damage through rates, taxes, higher insurance premiums and service constraints as well as the broader social and health costs to our community including homelessness, mental and physical health issues, loss to small businesses and agriculture, and added strain on community support organisations. Meanwhile, the corporations extracting and exporting coal and gas continue to generate significant profits and are not held responsible for climate disasters. Unlike many other gas-producing countries, Australia actually gives away to foreign companies the gas that they extract, process, and export elsewhere, reaping huge profits with nothing coming back to the Australian people.

The Climate Compensation Fund: The proposed Climate Compensation Fund would be nationally administered and financed by a levy on coal and gas exports. The fund was designed to directly help councils afford climate crises as they will inevitably come with ever greater frequencies and intensities. The fund can also be used to help with mitigation efforts and to improve community resilience. Rather than relying solely on ad hoc disaster funding rounds, councils would have access to a structural revenue stream aligned with the scale of climate impacts. This would improve long-term financial planning, asset management and risk mitigation. Note that this proposal is different to the 25% gas export tax currently being discussed in Parliament because that tax would fund general revenue, while the Climate Compensation Fund is earmarked for use by local governments. 

What are we asking Council to do? We will ask Ipswich Council to pass a motion to call on the Federal Government to establish a Climate Pollution Levy and Climate Compensation Fund. This is an advocacy resolution. It simply calls for structural funding reform at the national level to address escalating climate costs.

Why should Council support it? Local governments and residents did not create climate change at scale — but they are paying for it. When councils act collectively, they strengthen the case for federal reform to ensure that local governments are not left with growing, unfunded expenses related to climate catastrophes.

Click here to sign our petition!

Signing the petition tells Ipswich Council that you endorse the concept of making polluters pay their fair share of funds that will go directly to help communities prepare for and clean up from extreme weather events.