We're glad to see the government moving forward with accountability measures. This is something that we and a number of other environmental organizations have been asking for for a long time.
That said, we do have some issues with this particular bill. In particular, we don't see a 2025 target, which we think is really important. We know that we need to take action sooner rather than later, and our concern is that this bill might be holding future governments to account rather than the current government.
Some of the other issues have to deal with the actual accountability mechanisms. Is the expert body appointed by the government going to have the power to actually force the government to take any action? Would it be kind of making recommendations that can be ignored? We'd like to see the bill strengthened, but in general, we're happy to see the direction toward greater accountability.
This is very important, and this is the way that many other countries are going about managing climate change. We're following the lead of Britain, for example, but others as well. One of the benefits of this kind of a body is that it puts the power in the hands of experts to make recommendations about what policies should be taken. It takes it away from the political nature of the issue, which unfortunately is what climate change is subjected to.