Fossil fuel corporations are making climate change worse – and ordinary Australians are footing the bill. It’s not fair.

That’s why we’re calling on the Australian Government to make coal and gas corporations pay for the damage they cause.  

While coal and gas companies are making millions in profits from burning fossil fuels, climate related disasters are becoming more frequent and more extreme.

It's our communities who are footing the bill to rebuild and clean up the damage, instead of the companies who are fueling these disasters.

✍️ Add your name to the petition now!

Why a climate disaster levy?

• Fossil fuels are damaging our atmosphere and making climate related disasters like fires, floods, heatwaves and drought more frequent and more extreme.
• Australian households and businesses are already paying billions of dollars every year as a result. These costs include damage to our properties, higher insurance premiums, higher taxes to pay for emergency response, relief and reconstruction and higher food prices because of the impact on agriculture.
• This is driving up the cost of living for ordinary Australians, while the handful of global energy corporations causing it pay none of these costs.
• These costs will keep rising as fires, floods, drought and heatwaves become more extreme as a result of climate change, unless we also stop new coal and gas projects.
• If we don’t make these foreign owned energy giants pay for the damage they are causing, YOU will pay instead.

How will it work?

• Australia is the third largest fossil fuel exporter in the world and fifth largest producer. 
• A handful of predominantly foreign owned corporations are making windfall profits selling our resources, often pay little if any tax, and get much of the resource for free.
• A climate disaster levy on fossil fuel exports from Australia could raise billions of dollars every year to pay the costs of climate change, without raising prices in Australia.

Local governments face soaring cost of climate change

• Australia Institute analysis finds that the costs of climate change to local councils – such as repairing roads, drainage, parks and community facilities after floods, storms, and fires – are increasing far faster than local government revenue.
• The insured costs of climate change are now 12 times higher than 20 years ago, while local government revenue is only three times higher.
• Ratepayers shouldn't be expected to pay for the damage caused by coal, gas and oil companies. These huge, multinational companies that extract and export Australian resources are in a far better position to pay for the climate impacts than local councils. Gas and coal corporations have made huge profits recently, many pay little or no tax, and then leave Australians high and dry with the costs of disasters. 

SA Algal Bloom

• In 2025, South Australia's devastating algal bloom, triggered in part by a marine heatwave, spread across more than 500km of coastline, causing mass deaths of sea life, major disruptions to fisheries and aquaculture, and sparking public health alerts.
• As a result, the marine environment is in severe distress, fishing and tourism businesses are under extreme financial pressure, and it is clearer than ever that piecemeal responses won’t be enough.
• If the Government doesn’t act and implement a National Climate Disaster Levy, multinational fossil fuel corporations will keep pocketing massive profits, leaving Australian families and small businesses to shoulder the devastating costs of climate disaster time and again.

Image: The Australia Institute's call for change across South Australia’s main newspaper, with a full-page ad backed by thousands of supporters like you.