Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Climate change is a great economic and environmental challenge for this generation of Australians. In fact it is a challenge that has stared in the face of governments around the world since the states of the world gathered together and put together the Kyoto protocol and realised that we had a challenge that goes beyond any one nation state to fix. That is why the nations of the world agreed to ratify Kyoto, with the exception of one or two. When the opposition were in government they were one of those two. They said that the only way to fix climate change was for Australia to act unilaterally out there and not in concert with the rest of the international community.

If you are looking at the overall challenges of climate change, I think it is important to note that those opposite are now part of the climate change sceptics brigade mark 2. What we have here quite plainly with this new fear campaign on emissions trading is this: we have the return of the Kyoto sceptics in their new fear campaign on climate change and on emissions trading. That is what this is all about.

I suggest to those opposite that they soberly look at the economic cost. We know that they have no interest in the environmental consequences. They simply look at the flow-through effects in terms of the potential economic cost. I quote from the Preston and Jones report for the CSIRO in 2006, which is when those opposite were in the midst of their 12 years in government. It states that with a less than one degree temperature rise the snow covered area of the Australian Alps will shrink by 10 to 40 per cent by the turn of this century. That will have a huge impact on Australian tourism. The CSIRO report further states: with a warming of between two and three degrees, almost all of the Great Barrier Reef will be bleached every year; 80 per cent of Kakadu’s freshwater wetlands will be lost to a 30 centimetre rise in sea level; with a three to four degree rise in temperature, Murray-Darling river flows could fall by almost a half—between 16 and 48 per cent.

For those opposite who say that they have a particularly keen interest in representing the interests of rural Australia, let us look at the effect on primary industries. I will quote from figures provided by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO in 2007. They stated that climate modelling by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology suggests rainfall in southern Australia could be reduced by up to 10 per cent by 2030 and by up to 20 per cent by 2050. Furthermore, CSIRO in 2006 stated that livestock heat stress leads to a decline in milk production flowing from the effect which climate change has on temperature rises; that there will be a high annual cost of approximately $12 million a year to manage the southward spread of the Queensland fruit fly; and that with a warming of between two and three degrees there will be a 40 per cent reduction in livestock carrying capacity for native pasture lands. These are significant effects for rural Australia, and because they affect rural Australia they will have widespread effects on the entire national economy.

Let us go to the effects on human health. Annual heatwave deaths in Brisbane will increase from 134 today to between 165 and 189. Furthermore, a Climate Institute report of 2007 states that the southward spread of malaria receptive zones—

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