Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

As I have said to the Senate and to the Australian people on many occasions, climate change is a very serious challenge for Australia and a very serious challenge for the world. I think it is very appropriate that Senator Ferris should ask this question, and I thank her for doing so. Overnight and on the weekend, Tim Costello and a number of Australian non-government organisations and aid organisations released a report that analyses some of the potential impacts in our region. I have no quibble with the view put forward by Tim Costello and others that there is no doubt that, with warming of the oceans and warming of the atmosphere, we are likely to see changes to weather patterns and to sea levels and that they will have adverse consequences not just for Australia but also for our region. Of course, countries in the Pacific region are very vulnerable. The countries that are in fact coral atolls—very low-lying places like Tuvalu and Kiribati—will be very vulnerable.

That is why the government are working not only internationally with our friends, like Germany, in trying to ensure that, through the United Nations framework convention, we find a post-Kyoto regime that is effective at lowering greenhouse gases across the whole of the globe but also within Australia on domestic policies, putting in place transformational programs. For example, we have seen the Solar Cities announcement in Adelaide recently, which will transform entire suburbs across to solar power; the recent announcement of the solar city in Townsville; and the photovoltaic rebate scheme, which is on track to roll out 12,000 solar homes and solar schools across Australia—a whole gamut of domestic policies.