I got a text from a biodiversity advocate around midday on Thursday asking me: are you glad, or sad?

I wasn’t sure how to reply.

The Australian parliament is amending the country’s environment laws. Thanks to negotiating by the Greens, the amended laws will not enable the fast-tracking of coal and gas mining, which the government had proposed. Decisions about coal and gas mines that harm water resources will be retained by the commonwealth and not given over wholly to state governments as the government had proposed. That is an enormous relief.

And yet, I am filled with foreboding.

The bill introduced into parliament only a few weeks ago proposed to take the country backwards in environmental protection. It sought to strip communities of participation in environmental decisions, hand decision-making about environmental harm to the states and territories and give the environment minister sweeping power to tailor environmental regulations for certain developments, companies or industries.

The government made it clear from the outset that the convenience of business, the desire for “quick yesses” that could harm the natural environment, was its chief priority. It has been made clear that the government intends to grant fast-tracked approval to renewable energy developments and minerals mines. There is excited talk about “abundance” – which is code for sweeping forests, wetlands, woodlands and local communities out of the path of business, mining and development.

The minister is adamant this can be done while protecting the environment, but my 25 years of experience with environmental regulation tell me that haste brings unintended consequences. It makes communities angry. It leads to losses of our beautiful natural heritage that are mourned for generations. It impoverishes us by eroding the natural ecosystems that actually create the “abundance” that makes our society.

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There is no abundance without reciprocity and we will learn this, to our sorrow, in the years to come if we continue treating the natural world as a magic pudding that can be cut and cut and cut and will come again.

Coal and gas mining will not be fast-tracked and for that I am very glad. But the government ruled out embedding any formal consideration of the impacts of greenhouse gas pollution, the effect of climate change on Australia’s natural heritage, into decision-making. Only a few months ago, Australia’s first national climate risk assessment itemised a devastating prognosis for Australia’s marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems across the continent if global warming exceeds the limits set down in the Paris climate agreement. It spoke of ecosystems collapsing and whole species dying out. The only way to prevent that warming is to stop the pollution that comes from burning coal, gas and oil for energy, and quickly. Indeed, an International Court of Justice advisory opinion has affirmed that all countries have a legal obligation to prevent climate harm and protect the climate system. For Australia, that means preventing the pollution from our energy exports.

The greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s energy exports, and the impact that this pollution is having on Australians, is not going to go away because the minister refuses to think about it, or because the prime minister is too squeamish to talk about it. The consequences will plague our descendents for generations to come, long after this generation of politicians are gone, but there will be more immediate demands from communities suffering the effects of climate change that will become increasingly impossible to ignore.

• Georgina Woods is head of research and investigations for Lock the Gate Alliance