Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is directed to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s recent comment that he accepts the broad theory about global warming but is ‘sceptical about a lot of the more gloomy predictions’. I ask the minister: given that the European Union decided 10 years ago that avoiding dangerous climate change would require limiting the temperature rise to two degrees and thus establishing the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, have the Prime Minister and the Australian government decided what temperature rise constitutes dangerous climate change as opposed to ‘gloomy predictions’? If so, what is that temperature rise and, if not, have the Prime Minister and the government failed to address or make a decision about this most fundamental question: what temperature rise constitutes dangerous climate change and when will they decide?