Environment groups are holding an emergency meeting in Sydney on Monday to plan legal challenges and community campaigns against the Abbott government’s moves to hand over environmental decision-making to the states.

The memorandum of understanding signed 10 days ago by the prime minister, Tony Abbott, the environment minister, Greg Hunt, and the Queensland premier, Campbell Newman, and the Queensland environment minister, Andrew Powell, “looks like a straight handover of approval powers,” said the chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Don Henry.

The MOU states that Queensland must “ensure that matters of national environmental significance are separately identified and assessed, taking into account commonwealth guidelines, plans and policies” and that the state assessments must “meet commonwealth standards”. The Commonwealth pledges to avoid “to the greatest extent possible … imposing additional conditions”.

The MOU is intended as a template for legally-binding bilateral agreements between the commonwealth and each of the states - fulfilling the Coalition’s election promise to create and environment assessment “one-stop shop” and to remove “green tape”.

In a statement announcing the MOU had been signed, Abbott said it would “slash the growing burden and duplication of red and green tape which is a handbrake on investment in Queensland because two sets of environmental approvals cause delays to projects and investment across the state and the country.”

“The one-stop shop does not replace any state or federal environment laws – it simply streamlines the process, ensuring just one application, instead of two, needs to be made.

“That means the same strict environmental standards but ensures swift decisions and more certainty, whilst increasing jobs and investment in Queensland. State governments already administer environmental law and should be able to make environmental approvals on the Commonwealth’s behalf while maintaining the same strict standards.” The plans are enthusiastically backed by the conservative states.

But the environment groups say recent actions and decisions taken by state governments showed that the federal government needed to retain the final decision-making power and take responsibility for its international legal obligations. These included state support for:

• massive port developments along the Great Barrier Reef,

• logging and shooting in NSW national parks,

• grazing in NSW, Victorian and Queensland national parks,

• logging in Tasmanian world heritage areas

• huge coal developments in Queensland’s Galilee Basin

• the decision by the Queensland government to revoke the phase-out of sand mining on North Stradbroke Island and instead extend it to 2035 with fewer restrictions.

“There does not appear to be a veto power for the commonwealth in what has been proposed. We believe it is illegal for the commonwealth to wash its hands of its responsibilities,” Henry said.

“This is absolutely an emergency situation ... and the only recourse will be community action and the courts ... my advice to the corporate sector is to be careful what they wish for. They only need to look at (the proposed gas processing plant at) James Price Point. The state government was incompetent and it lost three court cases.” The James Price Point plant was eventually shelved in favour of a floating processing plant, but remains the favoured option of the WA premier, Colin Barnett.

“We will not stand aside and see our hard won national environmental laws weakened,” Henry said.

The meeting of environment groups comes as the Minerals Council of Australia (MC) unveils a new idea on Monday to further “streamline” environmental approvals.

The Minerals Council of Australia chief executive, Mitch Hooke, is proposing an online searchable database for up to date scientific information on each region, so every new development proposal did not have to repeat the same time-consuming analysis.

“The proposal complements the federal and state governments’ 'one-stop-shop' approach and is specifically designed to improve industry and community confidence in the project approval process – confidence which is being undermined by the excessive amount of time, effort and money wasted meeting overlapping, duplicating regulations which add little if any value to environmental protection,” Hooke said.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has already written to the director of Unesco, Kishore Rao, arguing the proposed handover of federal decision making powers “places the world heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef at grave risk.”

“Previous Queensland governments have tried to allow oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef and major developments on Great Barrier Reef Islands. The Commonwealth Government has had to step in to protect the values of the reef on a number of occasions. The World Heritage provisions of Australia’s federal environmental laws provide these protections, ensure the national interest is pursued in decision-making, and make sure the national government is able to meet its obligations under the World Heritage Convention,” Henry wrote on the day the Queensland and federal governments signed the MOU.

“The Queensland Government will make decisions from a Queensland perspective. It is responsible to the population of Queensland, not Australia as a whole. We believe there is a very high danger that the Queensland government will undertake environmental approvals on the Commonwealth’s behalf that will threaten the universal values of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The Queensland government is not a party to the World Heritage Convention and as such its decision-making will not adequately reflect the responsibilities of the Australian government as a signatory to the World Heritage Convention.”

“We urge you to write immediately to the Australian Prime Minister expressing the concern of the World Heritage Committee and reminding the Australian government that the Committee is currently considering the potential of an endangered listing for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and that any weakening of the application of federal environmental laws in Australia will be considered by the committee in this context.”

It is understood the Wilderness Society, the World Wildlife Fund and several state-based environmental organisations were involved in the Monday meeting.