Climate change will hurt more than environment

The Border Mail - Climate change will hurt more than environment

Climate change will hurt more than environment

CLIMATE change is one of the great challenges we face as a nation because it is much more than simply a threat to our environment.

What we know from the many expert scientific and economic research reports done on the impact of climate change is that failing to take real action now will hurt the Australian economy and cost jobs.

The scientists have spoken. If we fail to take action now, unpredictable changes to our climate will intensify. There will be longer and more intense droughts, sea levels will rise due to melting ice caps and there will be more extreme weather events. This will hurt our economy.

The easiest way to understand the devastating impact climate change could have on the Australian economy is to consider the relationship between climate change and drought.

Climate change will mean drier and longer droughts, which means more lost agricultural production.

Sadly the Howard Government has failed to act on climate change for 10 long years. Many senior ministers in the Howard Government, including the Prime Minister himself, are still sceptics.

We cannot solve drought and the national water crisis if we don't have a plan for climate change. And we cannot fix climate change with a government full of sceptics.

Of course it is not just droughts and the farmers who live through them who will be affected by climate change. Changes in sea temperatures will significantly alter available fish stocks and marine life in our rivers and fisheries, and rising sea levels pose a serious threat to our costal communities.

As a nation we face a fork in the road on climate change. We can go Mr Howard's way of inaction, or we can go the federal Labor way of tackling the climate change challenges that lie ahead.

If we are elected to government later this year, Labor will take real action to address climate change now. Not in five years, or 10 years or 15 years — a Rudd Labor government will take action on day one.

Labor will start by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. John Howard and George Bush are the only western leaders in the world who have not ratified this protocol.

Without a global system to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will continue to accelerate the threat to Australia's economy.

The Kyoto Protocol is the only truly global initiative capable of co-ordinating a global response to climate change.

Labor is also committed to introducing a national emissions trading scheme. This will create a market for carbon emissions that will give companies a financial incentive to reduce the amount of carbon emissions they produce.

Everyone agrees that there will be a cost associated with reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

A national emissions trading scheme ensures that cost is distributed by the market itself.

Finally Labor will significantly increase Australia's mandatory renewable energy target. Renewable energies, including wind and solar power will be a significant part of Australia's long-term response to climate change.

Labor will never resort to building 25 nuclear power stations across Australia.

In recent weeks, I announced that Labor will convene a national climate change summit in Canberra this year.

I have decided to bring together some of the nation's best business and science brains for a summit that will shape a national consensus on the best way forward for Australia over the next decade.

Invitations will be extended to Mr Howard and his ministers; premiers, chief ministers and their opposition counterparts; representatives of local government; and, senior government officials. Invitations will also be extended to other community leaders, labour movement leaders and non-government organisations.

The summit will certainly shape Labor's existing and prospective plans for dealing with the climate change challenge over the next decade.