Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question, because I know he has a significant interest in this issue, as do his constituents in Far North Queensland. The fact is that dangerous climate change poses fundamental risks to Australia’s environment and to our livelihood. These risks are increasingly well understood by experts, by scientists and by the Rudd government. Earlier this year I released Australia’s biodiversity and climate change: a strategic assessment of the vulnerability of Australia’s biodiversity to climate change. The report says:

Biodiversity is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change … Many of Australia’s most valued and iconic natural areas, and the rich biodiversity they support, are among the most vulnerable to climate change. They include the Great Barrier Reef, south-western Western Australia, the Australian Alps, the Queensland Wet Tropics and the Kakadu wetlands.

It goes on to say that we are already seeing changes that are consistent with climate change impacts. For example, fire regimes in southern Australia—which we have witnessed in their tragic consequences—have been changing. This is consistent with a drier and a hotter climate. We have seen eight mass bleaching events since 1979 on the Great Barrier Reef triggered by unusually high sea surface temperatures. The report also makes some alarming predictions about the ecological impact of dangerous climate change:

… for tropical rainforests, higher temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns – longer dry periods between intense rainfall events – will increase the probability that fires penetrate into rainforest vegetation.

Freshwater fish species, the report says:

… are vulnerable to reductions in water flows and water quality and, in addition, have a limited capacity to migrate to new waterways.

In a report I released—

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