John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have all been moved by the images of the effects of the disastrous hurricane in the southern United States last year. Once again, the forecasts of climate scientists have been verified by actual events, yet despite all the evidence Australian and United States government officials refuse to acknowledge any connection between increasingly severe climatic catastrophes and global warming. While ministers of the Howard government may choose to ignore home-grown critics such as me, they should at least take notice of the statements by Germany’s environment minister, Juergen Trittin. He said in part:

... the American President closes his eyes to the economic and human damage that are inflicted on his country and the world economy by natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina through neglected climate protection.

What if a similar disaster befell Northern Australia? Are we prepared for an evacuation of Cairns or Darwin or, in the worst case, Brisbane? Would the response be as well organised as that of the Whitlam government following Cyclone Tracy in 1974? I doubt that the Howard government has the capacity.

One of the few remaining arguments against the reality of global warming has been shown to be based on incorrect measurements and miscalculations. In the 11 August edition of the journal Science, two independent studies show errors in the calculations that supposedly show that global warming is not happening. Apparently, John Christy of the University of Alabama, the author of the defective study, made fundamental errors in interpreting the satellite data that he relied upon for his conclusions. Christy now admits his mistakes and accepts the earth is warming. In another paper, Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California reported that 19 independent climate models all show that the earth is currently warming at a rate of between 1.5 and six degrees Celsius per century. Even the lower figure of 1.5 degrees is associated with dangerous climate changes, while the six-degree figure will lead to catastrophic disruptions to our weather systems.

The Prime Minister argues that further expensive intervention in Iraq is necessary because that country is at a political ‘tipping point’, yet when climate scientists warn that the world’s climate is at a far more dangerous climatic ‘tipping point’ their views are either ignored or discounted as fearmongering. Is the Prime Minister aware of the findings announced at the Stabilisation 2005 climate science meeting held at Exeter in England last February? Participants at that meeting warned that the risks of disastrous changes to the sea level and to weather systems are more likely than previously thought and that we are rapidly approaching a number of climatic ‘tipping points’. The most concerning was the possibility of a runaway meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet that could trigger irreversible climate change and would raise sea levels by as much as seven metres. The world could reach this particular ‘tipping point’ within a decade or two unless drastic steps are taken to greatly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

I have spoken previously about various practical and affordable measures using existing technology that would significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Today, let me mention another good example. We are all aware of the rising price of petrol, which the petroleum pundits have been predicting for at least 10 years. When the Prime Minister complains that there is nothing that he can do about the rising price of fuel, he ignores the fact that his government has refused to promulgate rational energy policies that could have significantly reduced the impact of these predicted fuel price increases.

It is a fact that the energy efficiency of conventional vehicles is less than 20 per cent and that the fuel-wasting engines in today’s cars and trucks produce about one quarter of the carbon dioxide released in Australia from fossil fuels. Despite their price, the vehicles with the fastest growing sales in the stalling car market are high-efficiency hybrids—cars that have fuel economies at least double those of vehicles fitted with conventional internal combustion engines. Toyota and Honda have both said that the reason that their hybrid vehicles are relatively expensive is the problem of an economy of scale. I would suggest that an additional problem in Australia is the $500 million subsidy that the government hands out each year to the purchasers of gas-guzzling four-wheel drives. It is imperative that the government acts to improve the miserable fuel efficiency of vehicles made in Australia by requiring manufacturers to quickly adopt modern technology such as hybrid engines.

Unless the government is prepared to act immediately, we have little chance of reducing either the growing emissions of carbon dioxide that is driving global warming or the growing fuel bills that are an increasing burden for the families of Australia. I conclude by asking: is there any good reason why this quite reasonable initiative should not become part of the Australian government’s policy response to the threat of climate change?