Page 292 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 December 2008
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I am committed, as the minister responsible for climate change in this government, to show that leadership, to push the boundaries and to look at new and innovative ways of addressing this most pressing of social, economic and environmental challenges. It is, simply speaking, the most serious and dominant matter that this and future Assemblies will have to face, over the next couple of decades in particular.
I heard recently a scientist from the United States say that this generation alive on the globe today is the most important generation in human history. He said we are the most important generation because what we decide and do now will determine whether or not the globe is fit for habitation in 50 and 100 years time, or whether it has a climate which has escalated out of control, where feedback mechanisms promote forms of climate change and global warming that are disastrous on ecosystems, on human life overall, on our water, energy and food supplies and on our ability to live cohesive, safe and peaceful lives. I think that message from that scientist is one that we should all bear in mind as we conduct this inquiry. I know that the will is there in this Assembly, I know that the commitment is there from members across all sides of this chamber to achieve a significant and important outcome for our community.
I look forward to the results of this inquiry. It is an ambitious time frame given such extensive terms of reference. But I think we need to meet that time frame so that we can move beyond the debate on what the targets should be and get more and more into the detail of making them happen and achieving the emissions reductions that we must achieve. The work of the committee will be important, and I commend the proposed terms of reference to the Assembly.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.10): We are very happy to support this motion, and particularly the reference to the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Environment and Water to inquire into this issue. I think it is timely that we have an inquiry. We have heard a lot of talk, both at a national level and at an ACT level, from governments about a response to climate change. So far, we have seen little action. We have certainly been pushing for not just long-term targets but medium-term targets as well.
The importance of the medium-term targets is that it is very difficult for people in the community to take the long-term targets seriously if we do not have the medium-term targets to back them up. In talking about where we are going to be in 2050, Jon Stanhope is not going to be here to answer for that; even younger members of the Assembly like myself are very unlikely to be in the Assembly in 42 years time to say whether or not we reached our 2050 target. So it is important that we have medium-term targets; it is important that those targets are realistic but also that they are ambitious. We need to get that balance.
There is no point putting in a target that we have no way of meeting, but at the same time there is no point putting in a very modest target that we should be able to easily meet. We need to stretch ourselves, and we as a community need to do that. But we also need to do it in a sensible and realistic way. It is worth going through some parts of the motion, and also talking about some of the initiatives we have been pushing for, and I am sure that these will be looked at by the committee because the terms of reference are fairly broad.
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