Federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek has told the UN ocean conference that “under the new Australian government, the environment is back – front and centre”.

“For those of you who don’t follow Australian politics very closely, we’ve just had an election, there’s a new government, the whole world has changed,” Ms Plibersek told the conference in Lisbon. 

Kristian Teleki, global director of the ocean program at the World Resources Institute and head of the friends of ocean action for the World Economic Forum, hosted the session, and noted there has been “an incredible amount of progress in such a short amount of time”.

“Welcome back, Australia,” he said. 

Under previous LNP governments, Australia has been seen as a global laggard on climate change and broader environmental issues, but Ms Plibersek says the Albanese government is working on a series of new blue carbon projects and assistance for developing nations to safeguard the health of their oceans.

“These projects will restore mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses across our nation,” the environment minister said. 

“They will help increase carbon sequestration, marine diversity and mitigate flooding.”

She said Australia does not see any prospect of safeguarding the environment and oceans without action on climate change. 

“Ambition is our only option,” the minister said.

She said Australia is updating its medium-term emissions reduction target with the UN, and is bringing forward legislation giving effect to the 43 per cent target as “one of our first acts as a new government”.

She said Labor would also double the number of Indigenous rangers by the end of the decade and work harder to include traditional methods of caring for land and sea country.

“For more than 65,000 years, Australia’s Indigenous people have cared for land and sea country – ‘country’ being so much more than its physical properties,” Ms Plibersek said. “There is much Australia, and the world, can learn from their example.”

She said Australia would also support blue carbon projects in the Pacific and share the latest blue carbon science and accounting. 

The address can be seen in full, below.