John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House acknowledges that climate change is:

(1)

real; and

(2)

human-induced.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know, I have been speaking for many years in parliament on the need to take urgent action in relation to climate change. In 2003, one of the hottest summers on record, a health crisis occurred in Europe in which an estimated 40,000 people died from heat stress. In France, 14,802 heat related deaths were recorded in that summer of extremes, mostly amongst the young, the sick and the elderly, unable to cope with the extreme temperatures.

The terrible year of 2003 brought some of the highest temperatures on record, yet 2006 saw another heatwave, with the warmest July since the first official records, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom. And in this year, even more records were broken, with the period from April to June being the warmest ever recorded for land areas in the Northern Hemisphere. Not only is the evidence for global warming ever strengthened but there are also the less well recognised threats of rising sea levels, caused by melting ice and the thermal expansion of seawater, and ocean acidification, caused by the dissolution of carbon dioxide gas.

The global warming problem can be separated into three distinct issues: measurements, causes and consequences. The first issue, measurements, is the collection of observations carried out over decades that show a clear warming trend. In particular, NASA has recently issued the following findings: (1) that the decade January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest on record; (2) that the most recent annual Arctic Sea ice coverage minimum, a strong indicator of arctic temperatures, was the second lowest in satellite observations; and (3) that the land ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are both losing ice and that Antarctica has been losing 100 cubic kilometres of ice per year, while other reports show that Greenland is losing 200 cubic kilometres of ice per year.

The British Met Office and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s recent combined report entitled State of the climate also warns unequivocally that the world is warming and has been for the last three decades. The report states, firstly:

… the first six months of this year were the hottest on record.

Secondly:

… “variability” in different regions, such as the cold winter in Britain, does not mean the rest of the world is not warming.

And thirdly, that greenhouse gases are the glaringly obvious cause of the 0.56 degrees warming over the last 50 years. The CSIRO, in its own recent State of the climate report, states that (1) the mean temperature in Australia has increased by about 0.7 degrees since 1960; (2) the decade 2000-2009 has been the warmest on record; and (3) the geographic distribution of rainfall has changed significantly over the last 50 years and rainfall has decreased in the south-east and south-west. The CSIRO report concludes that there is a nine out of 10 chance that the warming observed since 1950 has been driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

The second issue relating to global warming is the identification of the factor or factors causing this phenomenon. As reported recently in New Scientist, Aradhna Tripati and her colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, have found that the chemical composition of fossil shells is linked to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and have been able to reliably reconstruct the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide for the last 20 million years. This and other studies have shown that carbon dioxide is a principal influence in controlling the earth’s climate and, in particular, these investigations provide an insight into the sensitivity of the climate to changing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is defined as ‘the effect on mean global temperatures of the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels’. Richard Alley, of Pennsylvania State University, reports that a climate sensitivity figure of three degrees, also supported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is in accord with the available data. Although many details remain to be settled, the evidence is now very clear: if we double the pre-industrial level of carbon dioxide of around 280 parts per million we can expect a rise in global temperatures of three degrees in the short term and possibly as much as seven degrees over the centuries to follow.

The third issue regarding global warming is the predicted consequences of the continued emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Although the fossil evidence is clear, predictions of climate change over the next few decades have to rely upon mathematical models that simulate the complex processes that drive the climate. When climatologists add the well-understood effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels into these models they see results that are in accord with observations. It is this agreement of model calculations with real-world conditions that gives confidence that the predictions of future warming are essentially correct.

There are two other serious problems that do not depend upon theoretical studies or fossil evidence to raise an alarm. The first concern is the increase in sea levels brought about by the simple physical processes of the thermal expansion of seawater and the melting of glacial and polar ice. According to the CSIRO, from 1870 to 2007, global average sea levels have risen by close to 200 millimetres, at an average rate of 1.7 millimetres during most of the 20th century and at an accelerating rate, corresponding to increasing global average temperatures of three millimetres between 1993 and 2009.

The CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research warns: ‘Worldwide, in excess of 150 million people live within one metre of the current high-tide level and a further 250 million people live within five metres of the high tide.’ Recent observations from satellites and tide gauges show that the increase in sea levels is tracking close to the maximum forecast issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001 and will lead to an estimated global average rise of 880 millimetres above 1990 levels by 2100. There is sufficient heat accumulated in the atmosphere and oceans that make it virtually certain that millions of people will be flooded from their homes over the coming decades.

Another concern is the acidification of sea water caused by the dissolution of carbon dioxide gas into the oceans. Measurements show that approximately one-third of the carbon dioxide gas that has been released by the burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution has dissolved in sea water, and this dissolved carbon dioxide gas is causing the ocean waters to become increasingly acidic. A high-school chemistry textbook will tell you that when carbon dioxide gas dissolves in water it will react with the water to produce carbonic acid, which partly dissociates to form carbonate, bicarbonate and hydrogen ions. Hydrogen ions are found in all aqueous solutions of acids, and the acidity of a solution is determined by the concentration of hydrogen ions. This concentration is usually expressed as pH, which for complex reasons is found to be seven in neutral solutions, greater than seven in alkaline solutions and less than seven in acidic solutions.

Sea water is normally slightly alkaline, and across the planet the pH of the surface layers of sea water—which are the habitat of most sea creatures—have become more acidic by 0.12 pH units since the beginning of the industrial revolution, so that the pH of surface layers of sea water is now approximately 8.1. This increase in acidity of the surface layers of ocean water of 0.12 pH units actually represents an increase of 30 per cent, or nearly a one-third increase, in the acidity of ocean waters.

In November 2008, scientists from the CSIRO and the University of New South Wales published a paper that reported on seasonal changes in carbonate and ocean acidity. The scientists found that the level of acidification where the shells of important plankton organisms start to dissolve corresponds with an atmospheric concentration of 450 parts per million. As of September 2010 the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide had reached 386 parts per million and was increasing at an annual rate of two parts per million.

At this rate, we shall see the tipping point of the acidification of ocean ecosystems by no later than 2040, if not sooner. Dr Ben McNeil, senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre, warned that, because vulnerable organisms such as pteropods are at the bottom of the food chain, ocean acidification could lead to large-scale ecosystem changes affecting not just plankton but other marine life including fish, whales and dolphins. Dr McNeil went on to warn that, right now, we do not really know the ramifications of these changes. I would submit today that they would be extremely serious. Acidification of sea water by carbon dioxide emissions is putting at risk entire ocean ecosystems, and humans will not be immune to the consequences of a collapse. Such an event would be an extraordinary disaster, the more so since we will have been forewarned well in advance.

Finally, the strength of the evidence of human responsibility for global warming, ocean acidification and rapidly rising sea levels is now well beyond reasonable doubt. Such is the magnitude of these threats that urgent action to greatly reduce carbon dioxide emissions is absolutely essential.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call for a seconder to the member’s motion.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. ‘We are playing Russian roulette with features of the planet’s atmosphere that will profoundly impact generations to come. How long are we willing to gamble?’ These are not my words but the word of David Suzuki, well-known scientist and academic. Do these words have relevance in this 43rd Parliament? That is the answer those opposite must provide, the test by which they will be measured.

The science behind climate change is not new; it has not recently emerged. It is based on a body of science over 100 years old. Governments and policymakers for the past 21 years have been provided with an assessment of the state of knowledge in global climate change science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, a report based on the work of more than 1,250 scientists from 130 countries, the national academies of sciences of each of the Group of Eight countries along with those of India, Brazil and China, plus our own national Academy of Science, agree with the conclusion that global warming is likely caused by us.

Much has been made of two minor errors in the 2007 IPCC report. But these errors are minor, did not affect the overall findings and went to the effects of climate change, not whether it is occurring, which is the question we are debating today. As the Royal Society wrote:

There is no greater uncertainty about future temperature increases now than the Royal Society had previously indicated.

The science remains the same, as do the uncertainties.

                  …              …              …

There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the main cause of the global warming that has taken place over the past half century.

Some who do not accept the overwhelming body of science point to the uncertainties. As Professor Will Steffen has noted, climate scientists are now 100 per cent certain that the world is warming and 95 per cent sure that humans are the primary cause.

A balanced assessment of the available evidence and prior knowledge allows levels of confidence to be attached to scientific findings. Just as we know that asbestos is very likely to cause malignant mesothelioma and bad cholesterol is very likely to increase the risk of a heart attack, we know that society’s greenhouse gas emissions are very likely causing global warming. Just imagine that you had a sick child, and 95 out of 100 doctors told you that the child needed a life-saving drug. Would you really follow the advice of the other five doctors?

To those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific consensus on human induced climate change, I lay down this challenge. Today is the day for you to get on the record. When the next generation looks back to this debate, I want them to know what I stand for. And I want them to know what you stand against. In the words of Rupert Murdoch:

Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction.

The risk of inaction is too high.

I wish to place on record my thanks to Shobaz Kandola, my adviser, for his assistance in this speech and to acknowledge the presence in the public gallery today of my friend Macgregor Duncan, who works for Better Place, an electric car company.

Climate change is a problem which has been caused by us and by our parents. It is a problem whose effects will be felt by our children and their children. It is right, it is just and it is the honourable course for us to begin to make amends for our actions. The costs should be ours to bear; the benefits reaped by our children. The science informs us that there is a problem. Scientists tell us that action must be taken. The economics makes it clear that the cost of inaction is too high. Economists advise us that the sooner we act, the less the cost.

To act on climate change is to invest for the present and for the future. We will recoup the costs. We will all prosper. To act on climate change is to act in the national interest, to invest in our prosperity, in our wellbeing and in the health of the environment. Those who stand for inaction and those who do not accept the science stand against the national interest. Let us agree to this motion in unanimity, and let those opposite join with us and with the crossbenchers in a debate about the merits of action. Our parliament is fitting of such a debate and our nation deserving of a contest of ideas to help solve a great challenge facing Australia.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I congratulate the member for Reid on his most significant contribution in this House since the beef stroganoff incident. Let me begin by making this point. As desperately as the government seeks to make this an issue about either the science or the targets, there is not a dispute between the parties over the science or the targets in this House. There is a strong dispute as to what is the best mechanism to deal with this issue. The great question facing this House is not one of science, is not one of targets—both parties have official agreement on that. It is simply about whether or not we use an enormous impact on electricity pricing and the cost of living on mums and dads and pensioners and seniors as the mechanism to deal with the crisis, as the government would put it, or whether or not we use direct action in the form of abatement purchasing as a means of taking immediate steps. Our approach would begin on 1 July 2011. Our approach would have $300 million in the first year, $500 million in the second, $750 million in the third and $1 billion in the fourth, all identified, allocated, with clear, express dates and mechanisms. At that stage, for all of the talk from the government, there is no date for commencement, there is no policy to implement, there is no choice even between the carbon tax which the Prime Minister ruled out on 20 August or the emissions trading scheme which the Prime Minister had her predecessor drop in late April of this year. And there is no express policy other than an undetermined desire to drive up electricity prices. That is the reality of what this debate is and should be about.

Let me speak to the essence of this motion for a moment. It is inelegantly structured. Anybody could look at this motion and determine that they could support it on the basis that they believe that changes in the climate were 100 per cent caused by humans, although, as the member for Fraser repeatedly set out through qualifications in his statement, he was not saying 100 per cent; or 0.1 per cent caused by humans even if one were not to agree with, as I do, the theory of greenhouse gases having an impact on climate. If one were to agree that urban heat islands have an impact, however minuscule, on global temperature, one could happily support this motion even if one did not agree with the notion that there is a greenhouse gas effect. So this motion has a breadth of potential meaning. On our side our position as a party is very clear. We support the concept of a need to take action to reduce our emissions, and that is why we share the same targets as the government.

But I would also put in an important point here, and that is that none of us in this place should ever use our own positions as a means for clamping down on free and open debate in our society. People such as David Suzuki take a contrary view on this debate. I happen to disagree with him but I recognise that he is a far better credentialled scientist than I am. There are at least four million Australians who take a different view, and they should not be demonised, attacked or pilloried. They should have a right to make their argument free of attack or demonisation. I think that that is fundamental to what we are here for. Let us debate that element on the merits. Let us not denounce, as I am sure the member for Reid would not want to do, people who come to a good-faith conclusion on the basis of their own research. Our position is not to argue on the science, not to argue on the targets, but to put forward a very different mechanism.

This debate in reality is about two different approaches. Firstly it is about the electricity tax approach of the government. Let us be absolutely clear that the scope, nature, purpose and intent of what the government is putting forward involve a massive hike in electricity prices for mums and dads. The reason they have used this form of debate on this day is to attempt to walk away from the issue of electricity pricing. Let me run through the evidence. First, let us start with the Garnaut report, which rightly and properly stresses that the very purpose of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme is to pass through the costs of additional carbon pricing on electricity to consumers. Professor Garnaut at page 387 says:

… a major part, if not all of the costs faced by electricity generators will be passed down the chain from electricity generators, through distributors and retailers and finally to households [through] higher prices for electricity.

But that theory can also be quantified in terms of the costs, because in this House at this dispatch box on 3 February the then Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, citing Treasury modelling, said that in 2011-12 electricity prices would go up by seven per cent and that in 2012-13 they would go up by 12 per cent. That is a 19 per cent increase in the first two years of the government scheme on electricity pricing over and above every other impact.

The New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal went further in March of this year with its determination on electricity price rise approvals. What it said was that there would be over three years an additional 25 per cent price increase approved not just for mums and dads and pensioners but also for small business owners. This was additional. So there can be no doubt and no debate and no dispute that the mechanism which the government is ultimately proposing is an electricity price hike for mums and dads and pensioners. If they believe in that mechanism, they must argue for it. They cannot pretend that the very mechanism which was designed, intended, constructed, developed to increase electricity prices will not increase electricity prices. To do other than that is a sheer fabrication, lie and distortion. So the mechanism they have chosen, but for which they have not set a structure or a date, will increase electricity prices by 25 per cent over the first three years over and above all other elements.

I will go to a fourth piece of evidence on this, and that is the Port Jackson Partners report which was prepared last year for the Business Council of Australia. On page 122 it sets out a structure and a chart that shows the contributing elements to price rises in electricity over coming years. It shows that, yes, there would be non-ETS components: the cost of networks and the cost of increases in fuel. But it says that the additional element, on top of networks and fuel, that the emissions trading scheme proposed by the government would contribute would be a 60 per cent increase in wholesale prices and that would translate to a 24 per cent additional impact on consumer prices over three years. The evidence is clear, strong and unequivocal that the government’s approach would have a 24 to 25 per cent impact on consumer prices over and above all other elements within the first three years. Over an eight-year period we are looking at a doubling effect on consumer electricity prices for mums and dads, for pensioners, for seniors, for small business owners and for farmers as a direct consequence of the mechanism that the government has chosen.

Again, as was said by the member for Wentworth in relation to the NBN at this box last week, the government is confusing the ends and the means. By arguing for an end they say that only their means can be validated. That is false. There is a far different approach. Our approach is very simple: we believe that instead of chemotherapy there should be laser surgery. We want to put in place an abatement purchasing mechanism. It is a mechanism that has as its genesis the not perfect, but highly successful, New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. It is a scheme that seeks out the lowest cost abatement and is currently producing abatement at approximately $7.15 a tonne. It does that by finding abatement rather than by raising the price of every other element in our society. That is the scheme that we propose. That is the scheme that can directly reduce emissions and that is why there is a real debate in this country. It is not the issue that the government wants today. That is not at issue between the two parties. It is an issue between massively higher electricity prices and direct abatement.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with my colleague the member for Flinders to chastise the clumsy nature of this motion. Indeed, it is a concern that a member in this place would bring a motion forward politicising a scientific area in such a way that would not really be to the benefit of that science.

To say that climate change is human induced is to overblow and overstate our role in the scheme of the universe quite completely over a long period of time. I note that the member for Fraser came in here today with a very strong view about how human beings have been the source of all change in the universe at all times. He has joined a long line of Labor backbenchers I have spoken about in this place before—amateur scientists, wannabe weather readers, people who want to read the weather, people who like to come in here and make the most grandiose predictions about all sorts of scientific matters without even a basic understanding of the periodic table, or the elements or where carbon might be placed on the periodic table. So the member for Fraser has joined this esteemed group of people who seem to be great authorities on science.

The issue here today before us is not that climate change is human induced. The member for Flinders has raised the very important topic that I asked the Prime Minister about in question time just a few days ago, and that is: what will the effect of the government’s policies on climate change be on human beings in Australia today? How will a carbon tax do anything for the environment? How will it change the climate of the planet? In what ways would a carbon tax alter the climate of the planet? The answers are of course completely uninspiring and unsatisfying. A carbon tax could not do anything except raise the price of electricity. Hence the nature of my question to the Prime Minister: what would the nature of the rise in electricity prices be for the average household under a carbon tax? The Prime Minister refused to answer that question. I think she refused to answer it because there has been some considerable commentary about electricity price rises under a carbon tax.

IPART recently reported that in New South Wales there will be household increases. Households across Sydney have seen major electricity price increases already impacting their budgets. I want to record here that that is a direct result of a Labor state government underinvesting in electricity generation for over a decade—underinvesting in the necessary generation capacity. At the last state election in New South Wales, thousands or millions were spent on advertisements with young girls skipping over green hills with wind towers in the background. On the re-election of the Labor government they commissioned a new coal-fired power plant. The advertisements show the girls skipping across the green fields with the wind turbines, yet the first decision of the New South Wales state Labor government upon re-election was to commission a new coal-fired power plant.

The reality is that no matter who it is—whether it is Garnaut, the government, the state government or IPART—everybody knows that there will be electricity price increases. These have to be managed. A carbon tax will add significantly to the burden on households across Australia. The question must be asked: how will it benefit our environment? What will it do? We hear a lot of melodramatic language in relation to a motion such as this, and we heard some melodramatic language today. We have heard so many predictions about the future. It is of great concern to me that these predictions will never be held to any standard, scientific or otherwise.

And that is a concern with a motion such as this. In this parliament we do have a great consensus about the climate. We have a consensus that we do need to take measures to benefit our environment. The coalition has a set of policies that are, as the member for Flinders put well, laser surgery in terms of their direct benefit to the environment. They are the kinds of things that will achieve an end that people can look at and say, ‘Well, we are doing something for the planet.’

Of course, some of the great failings of this government, including the Green Loans scheme, set us backwards. Policy failure sets us backwards. Imposing a carbon tax on the economy with the justification being the environment, when the environment is not the goal, will set back the cause of benefiting the environment by many years. So will motions in this House that take us back five years and try to have a debate on a political wedge issue rather than deal with the climate, environment and economic issues of the day, which are how well a carbon tax will benefit other Australians.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion seems simple, but accepting it means accepting all the consequences that flow from it. By publicly calling the science of climate change ‘crap’ and then cleverly maintaining wiggle room, as the members for Flinders and Mitchell have just done—that, perhaps, any changes in temperature are not in fact human induced—the opposition condemns itself globally as a fringe group unwilling to accept the logical consequences of the argument that they have made for many years.

Those in the opposition have told us for many years that humans are a special species capable of moulding and transforming the world. Many on the conservative side of politics have told us consistently of the powers of science and of our ability to understand the basics of the atom and the elements. So why, when we have heard in the last few weeks from one of Australia’s and the world’s foremost climate scientists, Professor Will Steffen, that the planet was hotter this decade than in any other in recorded history and that there is now near certainty that humans are playing a significant role in contributing to this warming, do we not accept the truth of what he and the scientists are saying?

But worse than the denial of climate change itself is the denial of the need to act in line with the science. This is not an issue with which one can play the usual kind of political negotiation. This is not an issue where we can strike a deal with nature and attempt to negotiate the laws of physics and chemistry.

The political party which accepts the science but not the need for drastic action is like the 40-a-day smoker with impending cancer who gets told by their doctor to give up and cuts down to one pack a day, thinking that is a reasonable compromise. So to pass this motion now is to accept the primary role of the science in framing the options that are available to us from here on in.

The planet does not have a finely calibrated thermostat that one can turn up and down by parts of a degree. The better analogy is with the human body. There is a normal band of the body’s core temperature within which human beings can survive. Move the body more than a small amount above normal, however, and fever, hypothermia or organ failure become appreciable risks. Likewise, there are climate thresholds that must not be breached. For example, if we allow the planet to warm up too far we will unlock the vast carbon stores of the permafrost, driving up temperatures even further.

At Copenhagen it was agreed that we should try to stay below a two-degree guardrail to avoid appreciable risks of these extreme events. But if all the other countries of the world adopted Australia’s woeful five per cent bipartisan pollution reduction targets we would be on track for a world that is on average four degrees hotter, with extreme climate events the norm and where as few as 500 million people might survive.

In the face of all of this, when we continue to expand our coalmines, coal-fired power stations and coal exports one wonders whether federal and state governments are really getting the message. We have a carbon budget that requires us to peak in our emissions within the next few years. And yet one of the first acts of the new Gillard government was the approval of new coal export contracts, and hundreds of millions of dollars of public money have been allocated for infrastructure to help export that coal.

In Queensland, we have the Wandoan coalmine and, in the Surat Basin, coal seam gas as the subject of intensive investments. In Victoria, the Brumby Labor government is opening a new coal-fired power station, HRL, which in one fell swoop will wipe out any suggested gains that might be made from the closure of a quarter of Hazelwood. As a country we are on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading exporter of polluting energy.

If we were to take this motion seriously, we would be taking real action to end our reliance on coal. The climate emergency requires us to take strong and profound action to cut carbon pollution. That is why the Greens are working with the government to put a price on carbon. We acted swiftly, across countries and with enormous resources, when the financial system was in trouble. Let us extend to the planet the same courtesy as we have to the banks. Our future, and our children’s future, depend on nothing less.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.