Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect that that was not the first dog whistle that we have heard in the parliament today and it will not be the last dog whistle we will hear in the parliament today. But I will leave it to those opposite to wrestle with their consciences on that question, as hard as that may be.

The question I was asked was about climate change and carbon pollution reduction. The Australian government is acting on climate change by introducing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to reduce Australia’s level of carbon production, by supporting Australian families and Australian businesses with any higher adjustment costs coming from a higher carbon price, by building the clean energy jobs we need for the future and by ensuring that Australia plays its part in cooling the planet for our kids and for our grandkids.

The alternative to action is to continue the inaction we have seen for 12 years. We are not proposing to do that. Instead, we have introduced the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and we look forward to seeing its passage through the Senate. To continue to engage in inaction on climate change would mean that we would continue to deny one core fact: the economic cost of inaction on climate change is far greater than the economic cost of action on climate change. To sustain a policy of inaction would be to deny the reality confronting Australians that we live in one of the hottest and driest continents on the earth. It would be to deny also the impact of inaction on drought, on fire, on extreme weather events, on coastal inundation, on the cost of insurance, on agriculture—including the projected 50 per cent fall in total agricultural production in the Murray-Darling Basin—and on the Great Barrier Reef. Inaction on climate change would result in the destruction of the reef over time and the 60,000 jobs generated by reef tourism. That is the economic cost of inaction.

Instead, the Australian government is acting through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The Department of Climate Change forecasts that by 2011 to 2013 Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions will start to fall. By 2020, there will be 138 megatons less carbon pollution than business as usual. To put that into context, that is the equivalent of taking some 35 million cars off the road, which is twice the size of the entire Australian motor vehicle fleet.

That is our action here at home through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. But we must also see action abroad. I welcome the news overnight that President Obama will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. I understand that 75 world leaders have already committed to attending the Copenhagen conference.

Yesterday the White House also announced that President Obama is prepared to put forward at Copenhagen a provisional US emissions reduction target of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. This announcement will help build momentum towards an ambitious global agreement in Copenhagen. I quote from the White House statement released at the time of President Obama’s commitment:

The President’s decision to go is a sign of his continuing commitment and leadership to find a global solution to the global threat of climate change, and to lay the foundation for a new, sustainable and prosperous clean energy future.

The Australian government continues to work closely with the government of the United States on its climate change policy, as we do with the government of China on its policy. We welcome the constructive role being played by China and we welcome also the work which China is currently undertaking on its national response to climate change in the lead-up to Copenhagen.

I wish to inform the House that I have been invited by the President of the United States to meet with him in Washington next Monday following the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting this weekend in Trinidad.

See this speech in context