Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to absolutely support the contention that there is now a huge opportunity for Australian business and government to lead the rapid growth and uptake of renewable energy, particularly utility-scale solar plants. If ever there was a need for us to move rapidly to renewable energy it is right now, given what we know about the science of global warming. In Hobart recently we had more than 250 scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who were there to review the latest science. It is clear that, whichever area of science you look at, what we are seeing is the worst-case scenario predictions in many ways exceeded. We will expect this report from the IPCC later this year.

As this science is getting worse, as the extreme weather events are intensifying around the world, we have the stupidity of examples like Senator Barnaby Joyce this morning ridiculing the science. I do not know what Australians must think when they hear people from the conservative side of politics continuing to ridicule the science of global warming. This morning Senator Joyce said this ridiculous thing. He said that, from his latest observation, 'the carbon tax did nothing to the weather over Christmas and so, if it is going to be a response to climate change, I want my money back'. Then he mockingly referred to doomsday predictions of seven-metre sea level rises and suggested that there is a prediction that we are all going to instantaneously combust.