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

I rise today to support the motion moved by Senator Wong. Essentially it has three elements: it notes the continued scepticism of the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, over the link between human activity and climate change; it notes the Howard government has dragged the chain for more than 10 years on climate change; and it notes the environmental and economic cost of past inaction and any future delays in tackling this challenge. It calls on the government to recognise the link between human activity and climate change and join in the efforts of the international community by ratifying the Kyoto protocol. All those things I think are worth noting and it is worth calling on the government to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

There is absolutely no doubt that the Prime Minister remains a sceptic on climate change. I do not know what he means when he says he is a climate realist other than in the sense that the polls are telling him that the Australian people are very concerned about climate change. They have made the link between extreme drought, extreme storms, floods and fires and climate change and they want action. Most Australians are ashamed of the fact that Australia and the United States are the only two industrialised countries not to have ratified the Kyoto protocol. It is inexcusable and it has left Australia way behind in adjusting to a low-carbon economy.

One of the things that I want to draw attention to particularly today is the Prime Minister’s response this week. This is why I say he is an ongoing sceptic; he does not take a clear interest in the science. He was asked this week by Tony Jones: ‘If the temperatures, the average mean temperatures around the world, do rise by somewhere between four and possibly even more than six degrees Celsius, what is going to be the impact on the grandchildren?’ The Prime Minister said, ‘Well, it would be less comfortable for some than it is now.’ Every scientist in the world will tell you a four-to six-degree average rise in temperature in the next 100 years is catastrophic. It would result in six out of 10 species becoming extinct, the death of all coral reefs, consequent loss of fisheries, starvation in many areas of the world, incredible drought, loss of water, death and disease; you name it. A four- to six-degree change in temperature by 2100 would make a radical change to human geography on earth. It would see the icecaps melt, it would see huge sea level rises and storm surges, and millions would be displaced. I call that a little bit more than ‘less comfortable for some’. Extinction is more than a bit ‘less comfortable for some’.

Then we had the new Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, saying that much of eastern Australia is adequately elevated to deal with a one-metre sea level rise. That might be from where he stands on the cliffs above Sydney, but he clearly does not understand the science. A one-metre sea level rise around the Australian coast means massive longshore erosion. It means the loss of the beaches from one end of the country to the other; it means seawater incursion on an unprecedented scale into Kakadu and the wetlands. Imagine the estuaries as a result of a one-metre sea level rise and put on top of that storm surge and extreme weather events and you have lost vast amounts of Australia’s coast and vast amounts of the infrastructure that goes with it.

What you have from both the Prime Minister and the minister for the environment is that they have no idea at all about what temperature rise means and what sea level rise means. They come out and make these statements and, tragically, the people to whom they make them often do not understand how stupid the answers are or they would take them up on it. But no doubt the scientific community around Australia is absolutely horrified at the level of ignorance we are dealing with. It is on that basis that we hear the Prime Minister and the minister for the environment saying: ‘Oh, look, it’s okay to be sceptical; it’s reasonable to be sceptical. We don’t want to make knee-jerk reactions. We’ve got plenty of time.’

But we do not have plenty of time. Sir Nicholas Stern said quite clearly when he brought out his report that we have less than 10 years—less than one decade—to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally to contain the global temperature rise to two degrees or less. Five hundred and fifty parts per million represents a 1.5- to 2.9-degree temperature rise. That is catastrophic! We have to keep the temperature below a two-degree rise, and to do that we need deep cuts by 2050 and deep cuts on the way by 2020. If you do not do that, you are condemning future generations to massive costs. You are condemning the earth to massive ecosystem change, dislocation for millions of people and insecurity.

Talk about security issues! Imagine the kinds of sea level rises if the West Antarctic iceshelf or the Greenland iceshelf melt. You will then see Bangladesh go under and millions of people looking for somewhere to go. It will be the same for the Pacific islands. Yet we had the former minister for immigration, Amanda Vanstone, saying that she did not believe in environmental refugees. In fact, she thought the notion of an environmental refugee was an insult to refugees. Environmental refugees are a reality; they are happening now. Already some of the world’s islands have disappeared.

In Nairobi last year the spokesperson for the government of Tuvalu said, ‘If we lose 43 nations, we lose their culture, their language and the integrity of their whole life and history.’ He was saying that if we allow temperatures to rise more than two degrees we are going to lose 43 small island countries from around the world. He went on to say, ‘If the rest of the world knew that 43 countries were going to disappear but they could not identify which ones then we would see some real action on climate change.’ It is as if the rest of the world has decided that 43 island nations can go under and we do not care. What is more, Tuvalu has asked, ‘Who will take our people?’ and Australia has said no.

Australia refuses to ratify the Kyoto protocol, refuses to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time refuses to acknowledge environmental refugees. It is New Zealand that has put up its hand and said it will take people from the Pacific. Is it any wonder that anyone looking at climate change as a security issue will recognise that we are building enormous resentment in the Asia-Pacific region about Australia’s arrogance in relation to this matter?