Linda Kirk (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak to and support the motion moved by Senator Wong in relation to human activity and climate change. Contrary to what Senator Ian Macdonald has just suggested, climate change is a very serious issue and it is an issue that, until recently, the Howard government has virtually ignored. As other speakers have said today, the only reason we have suddenly seen Mr Howard change from being a climate change sceptic to a climate change realist is as a consequence of his coming to the realisation that the overwhelming majority of Australians are very concerned about climate change.

Last Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released internationally its fourth assessment report on climate change. This is a report that contains what can only be described as dire news for this generation. And it is even worse for those who are to come after us—for our children and our grandchildren. It is the case that the brightest scientific minds throughout the world have concluded that later generations will be forced to live on a planet—this planet—that will be, by their time, between 1.8 and 6.4 degrees Celsius hotter than it is today.

Looking at this report and the previous three reports that the IPCC has produced, it is really difficult to imagine how this world—the world that is going to confront later generations—is going to be. One thing that we can be sure about is that the world is going to be hotter and drier, and we are going to confront wild storms, huge bushfires and, no doubt, a substantial loss of security that we can only imagine at this stage. The year before last, 2005, was the hottest year on record and the five hottest years have been those in the past seven—quite an astounding statistic. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, this has come about because carbon pollution is changing our climate.

Despite the clear scientific evidence, the overwhelming scientific evidence that is now emerging and the evidence that has existed for some time, the Howard government—and particularly the Prime Minister himself—seems to have been, until recently, in total denial about the impact of climate change. In fact, as some speakers have said, last Monday night on the Lateline program, the presenter, Tony Jones, asked the Prime Minister:

... what do you think living in Australia would be like by the end of this century for your own grandchildren ... if the temperatures, the average mean temperatures, around the world do rise by somewhere between four and possibly ... six degrees celsius?

The Prime Minister’s answer—which was, I have to say, quite staggering—was:

... it would be less comfortable for some than it is now ...

I find that statement by the Prime Minister just unbelievable, especially in the light of, as I said, the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is not going to make things just ‘less comfortable for some’ but potentially is going to have a devastating impact on this planet. You also have to wonder how the Prime Minister could make this statement, which really does verge on dishonesty. How could he not be aware of that which it seems almost everyone else is aware of?

Based on the findings of studies done by the CSIRO, even a three-degree increase in temperature would produce 3,185 to 5,185 more heatwave deaths per year in Australia’s major cities, a 40 per cent reduction in livestock carrying capacity in native pasture systems, functional extinction of the Great Barrier Reef—as Senator McLucas spoke of during her comments today—a 15 per cent to 70 per cent increase in the number of very high or extreme fire days in the south-east of Australia, tropical cyclone rainfall increases of 20 per cent to 30 per cent as wind speeds increase by five per cent to 10 per cent, and flows to the Murray-Darling Basin falling by between 16 per cent and 48 per cent. What I have just referred to is merely the impact that climate change will have here in Australia, not to mention the way it will impact throughout the rest of the world.

It really is quite shameful that the Howard government has left this country unprepared for the serious challenge that climate change presents. The Howard government appears to be unprepared for and unaware of the impact of climate change, but the Australian people are not. According to a recent news.com.au survey, Australians are more worried about climate change than about terrorism or any other global issue. An overwhelming majority of respondents to the survey said that they did not trust the government on the environment and, while 68 per cent said Australia should sign the Kyoto protocol, an even greater proportion, 82 per cent, said that Australian policy should go further than what the treaty obliges us to do in relation to tackling climate change—which I thought was a very interesting response.

The reason climate change is considered to be a greater threat than terrorism to international security, not only by the Australian people, as I said, but also by the world’s security experts, is because a hotter, drier and wilder climate will have a devastating effect on the world’s fresh water and food supplies. Of course we are all aware of the impact that will have on communities. Sea level rise and food insecurity could lead to refugee flows estimated to be as high as 200 million people throughout the world. But this is the world, this is the future that we do face and this is what the Prime Minister describes as ‘uncomfortable for some’.

As I mentioned before, the world’s scientific community is united in relation to the impact of climate change. Six hundred scientists, including 42 Australian scientists, representing 113 governments on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, melting of the snow and ice and rising sea levels.

If I had a choice between taking the word of the Prime Minister, who says that climate change is going to make some people uncomfortable, and listening to the commentary by the scientists I have referred to, it is pretty clear that I would believe the scientists and I am sure that the overwhelming majority of Australians would agree with me.

It is outrageous that this government is not acknowledging the potential impact of climate change. We know that the Prime Minister said recently he is now a climate change realist, whereas before he was a sceptic, but there is no question that the Prime Minister has known about climate change and its potential impact for the 10 long years that he has been Prime Minister of this country. He has learnt about the impact of climate change exactly the same way that all of us have learnt about it: through the previous three IPCC reports—those that preceded the one I have been speaking of—through reports put out by the Australian Greenhouse Office, and even through his own government in a 2005 report entitled Climate risk and vulnerability. This is not to mention all of the reports that have been done over the years by the CSIRO. The Prime Minister has also had Australian business talking to him over the last 10 years via the Business Roundtable and he has heard Australian farmers talk about this, particularly in recent years as they have experienced the one-in-100-year drought.

We in South Australia are particularly aware of the impact of climate change. Earlier in my remarks I mentioned the potential impact of climate change on flows to the Murray-Darling Basin and I mentioned figures that have been cited of reduction in flows of between 16 per cent and 48 per cent. In my state of South Australia we are very aware and very concerned about the water crisis that is gripping our state and, indeed, this nation. The toughest ever water restrictions we have had in our state have been imposed after the driest winter and the lowest inflows into the Murray in our state’s history. The reality is that if we do not have a climate change strategy then we are not going to have a water strategy either. Unless this government takes steps to properly address climate change, we are never going to fix the water crisis that is confronting this nation and my state.

Labor have taken a very different approach from this government to climate change. We have produced a climate change blueprint which puts forward responsible long-term plans to tackle climate change. We have said for some time now that we will ratify the Kyoto protocol. We have undertaken to cut Australia’s greenhouse pollution by 60 per cent by 2050, establish an emissions trading scheme and substantially increase the mandatory renewable energy target. When elected, a Rudd Labor government will take immediate and effective action to tackle climate change and thereby protect our children’s future. That is why our leader, Mr Rudd, has announced that he will be convening a national summit on climate change to be held here in late March or early April this year.

The difference between this government’s approach and the Labor opposition’s approach is pretty clear. We are looking forward and we have realised that there is no longer a debate about climate change; it has moved beyond debate. It is clear that the time for action is now. It is time to do something about it, to take positive steps and to convene a summit in the way that our leader, Mr Rudd, has suggested. All we have seen from this government is its complete lack of comprehension of the scale and impact of climate change and how it will change the lives of future generations.

I urge senators to support the motion presented today by Senator Wong. Climate change is the most pressing issue that we face in this country. Australians know that. It is a shame that the Prime Minister does not seem to understand that climate change is the most pressing environmental issue confronting us and that the time for action is now.