Warning: act now on climate
Today The Australian is saying Warning: act now on climate.
AUSTRALIA needs to adapt now to a warmer, drier climate for the rest of the century while working to cut greenhouse emissions, the nation’s major fossil fuel industries have warned.
Australian Industry Greenhouse Network chief executive John Daley said more confident scientific projections of climate change reinforced the need for governments, industry and the community to take action.
The latest draft of the fourth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a 3C temperature increase by 2100.
The AIGN represents resources and heavy manufacturing industries, and includes the coal, aluminium, automotive and plastics industries.
Warming is happening faster than previously expected:
The former chief of the CSIRO atmospheric science division, Graeme Pearman, said the current drought and sustained lower rainfall suggested the climate was warming faster than predicted, making adaptation strategies for the next two or three decades necessary until a global response could bring change under control.
And the politicians are making hay while the sun shines:
Federal Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said the debate on climate change had moved on from whether it existed to the scale of the anticipated global warming.
Mr Albanese said the new draft IPCC report reinforced the need for early action at an international level. “We need to adapt to the changes, we need to take action to reduce our emissions, and we need to be part of the global effort by ending our isolationist stance when it comes to these issues.”
But 9 pages on, in The Australian’s editorial, they are saying It’s not the end of the world.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected a rise of 3C in average daily global temperature by the end of the century, assuming greenhouse gas emissions remain stable.
That’s the key eh – assuming greenhouse gas emissions remain stable. The editorial undoes the call to action on the front page by parroting the long discredited line that a three degree rise doesn’t matter much, and that, because Australia, the worst polluter per capita in the world, only contributes 1% of the world’s emissions we shouldn’t even bother trying:
Australia’s approximately 20 million residents are responsible for just 1 per cent of the world’s annual emissions; a 50 per cent reduction would be barely a drop in the bucket.
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Right now humans are pumping some 57 billion tonnes of CO2 into the air every year. If we could eliminate half of 1% of that, that’s 285 million tonnes of CO2 less for the world to deal with. The world is warming, of that there is no doubt. The IPCC’s predictions are based on us not making the place even more of a mess. But if Australia’s leaders throw their hands up and cry business as usual, we are all headed for disaster. — DS
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