Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the member for Chifley for his question—although it does now seem some time ago. His question was on a very important topic, namely climate change, and the important report by the Climate Commission that came out today entitled The critical decade. That is an important title, because in this report we have climate scientists confirming that climate change is real and that action is needed on climate change. This is a report that has been extensively reviewed by a range of expert climate scientists, including the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Will Steffen, who worked on this report, has also been working with Ross Garnaut and his team as they have undertaken an update of the climate science.

This report shows that between 2001 and 2010 the global average temperature was nearly half a degree higher than the average temperature from 1961 to 1990. That makes it the warmest decade on record. As the sea is forced to absorb more carbon dioxide it is becoming more acidic, with a 15 per cent decrease in calcification rates over the past two decades which affects natural icons like the Great Barrier Reef. On the west coast of Australia, sea levels have risen by more than a centimetre per year since the 1990s. Around two-thirds of that rise has come from increased sea temperatures and melting ice caps. With rising sea levels come risks of extreme weather events. A sea level rise of only half a metre by the turn of the century can lead to very different risks for different seas. In Sydney or Melbourne's coastal areas, for example, a once-in-100-years extreme weather event could happen almost monthly.

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