Senator LUNDY (Australian Capital Territory—Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation, Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Sport) (14:07): We as a government are extremely concerned about the impacts of climate change, which is why we have put in place a carbon price. It has been operating since 1 July 2012 and we are already seeing an impact in cleaning up Australia's economy. There are a number of factors and contributions to how we will achieve this. Indeed, one of those is that electricity emissions are down. Electricity accounts for the majority of emissions covered by the carbon price, and emissions from the National Electricity Market fell by 7.4 per cent in the first 11 months of carbon pricing. That is a reduction of almost 12 million tonnes of pollution. Senator Milne: Mr President, I rise on a point of order on relevance. The minister was asked whether fossil fuels should be left in the ground and not burned and whether the government agrees with the commission. I would ask her to answer that. The PRESIDENT: The question was far wider than that. The minister is answering the question. Senator LUNDY: As I was saying, coal fired generation is also down and the amount of electricity generated by burning coal is down over seven per cent in the National Electricity Market. The updated The critical decade report by the Climate Commission shows that there is now even stronger evidence than ever before of a rapidly changing climate. It finds that greenhouse gas emissions are now at their highest level in over one million years and are increasing at a faster rate than ever recorded. This report is a stark reminder that this is a critical decade for Australia and the world, and we take its advice extremely seriously. That is why we are taking the action we are to transition to cleaner energy sources and why we have set up an independent Climate Change Authority to make recommendations about the right pollution cap and carbon budget for our country. The report urges government to make the switch from emissions intensive fossil fuel sources to renewable energy, and that is exactly what our clean energy future package is doing, combined with Labor's renewable energy target. I have already outlined some of the positive results we are seeing. (Time expired)