Page 1182 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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These impacts are occurring when the earth has warmed about one degree from pre-industrial revolution levels. But without urgent, rapid action we are on track for the world to warm at least four degrees by the end of the century. The outcomes of that would be catastrophic. We are in a climate emergency. We need to recognise that and act accordingly. Members will have noted that my colleague Mr Rattenbury has put a motion on the notice paper asking this Assembly to acknowledge that we are in a state of climate emergency. I look forward to talking about this when it is debated.
Global leaders need to be climate leaders and act to mitigate climate change and the worst of its impacts. The longer we wait to take mitigation action, the harder it will be and the worse the outcomes will be. They will be devastating for the planet’s inhabitants and its ecosystem. It will also be more expensive to do anything about it. For example, the national climate assessment released by the US government last year said that damaging weather had smashed records in the US for the past few years and cost around $550 billion dollars since 2015. That was even before the wildfires which devastated California at the end of last year. Clean-up costs from that are expected to exceed $1.5 billion. The insurance industry paid record payouts of close to $12 billion from the 2017 fires and expects to pay even more from the 2018 fires.
David Wallace-Wells, whom I talked about earlier, who lives in California, was talking about how it is even becoming normal to have wildfires next to you in California. Economies will struggle to cope with these kinds of costs as climate change worsens. It is no wonder that insurance companies are some of the loudest voices calling for climate change action.
But as well as mitigating climate change, we need to prepare and to adapt. Regardless of our mitigation actions, the impacts of climate change are already affecting us. They will continue to affect us because of the warming already built into the system, due to the greenhouse gases that we have already emitted. There is a long time lag, so there are consequences we cannot escape. Governments around the world are preparing adaptation actions to varying degrees. Some are desperate and some are still negligently ignoring the issue. Many coastal cities are planning or building sea walls to try to protect themselves from sea level rises that could wipe them out. The fact that adaptation measures can be such an expensive endeavour will put governments in increasingly difficult predicaments, as they must decide whether their resources will allow them to protect all or whether some must be left to their own fate.
In the ACT we need to prepare. Extreme weather will affect us in every way, from our infrastructure's ability to cope with heat and storms to our health, social and recreational opportunities. All planning and decision-making and all infrastructure expenditure by the ACT government must factor in climate change. When we plant trees we need to think, “Will these trees be appropriate for a hotter, drier climate?” When the ACT government buys a bus we need to think, “Will these buses perform properly in heatwaves?” When it builds a sporting facility, the government needs to think, “Will this provide adequate shade in a hotter climate? Can it handle a deluge of water from more severe storms?”
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