Page 4652 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 19 October 2010
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change does not fall more heavily on the less fortunate members of our community. Climate change is a human problem, created by humans, affected humans, and it will be solved by humans, by us. We need to solve it with compassion and kindness as well as technology, skill and some great ideas.
I am sure we all have heard the dire predictions that are in store for us and for the planet’s climate if we fail to respond to climate change. I referred to some of these changes in my maiden speech, to the global warming we have already experienced and the warming that is already locked in for the future. Each day the picture becomes clearer as there is more scientific evidence.
I will look in this speech at just one consequence of climate change, extreme weather. This is very disturbing. So far in 2010, 18 countries have broken their top temperature records. This is the most ever for a single year. In India, the heavy rainfall from monsoons has doubled in just the last 50 years. In May this year, Pakistan reached a temperature of 53.5˚ Celsius. This is the hottest temperature ever reliably recorded in Asia.
Arctic sea ice is at its third lowest extent on record and is declining fast. There is virtually none of the oldest ice remaining in the Arctic, that is, ice that is five years or older. David Barber, an arctic climatologist, recently declared that the changes in the Arctic are now irreversible and, as he put it, this is a very big change for the entire planet.
But these changes are not just happening somewhere else. Australia is one of the countries whose climate will be most impacted. We are of course very fortunate to be a wealthy country, which will put us in a better position than most countries to mitigate and to adapt. And mitigate and adapt is what we need to do now.
These changes are already impacting on human beings. This year in Pakistan extreme flooding left 20 million people homeless and, worse than homeless, they have lost for at least a season the agricultural land that they depend on for food. A paper published in the journal Science this year estimated that climate change will threaten the food security of approximately 60 million people in Asia by the year 2050.
Closer to home, we are currently struggling with the human impact of extreme events such as the Gippsland bushfires and the prolonged drought in south-eastern Australia.
As my colleague Mr Rattenbury said, there is a moral imperative to act on climate change. We know that every minute we delay will amplify the negative impacts of climate change in the future, making it harder for our children and grandchildren to address. This is why the 2020 target is so important. We need strong short and medium-term targets.
Like my fellow Greens and the ACT community, I am proud and pleased that the government has agreed to the target of 40 per cent. It is the target recommended by the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Energy and Water and by the ACT Greens. It would be wrong for us to set a target any lower than 40 per cent, despite the alternatives that Mr Seselja and the Liberal Party are trying to push today. The science is clear. Thirty per cent will not be enough.
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