Page 1861 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (4.21): Nine years ago, this Assembly passed the Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act 2010. It required a 40 per cent reduction by 2020 of scope 1 and scope 2 emissions from local greenhouse use; that is, local emissions and those due to our local electricity use. That was appropriate at the time. In fact, it was more than appropriate; it was world leading and it reflected the science at the time. If every jurisdiction had done as the ACT did, the world would be a better place and we might not be in a climate emergency. Instead, Australia and the rest of the world have increased emissions, so there is a climate emergency now.
My colleague Minister Rattenbury has talked about it at great length, so I will not repeat all the comments about the physical impacts except to repeat that globally 20 out of the past 22 years have been the hottest on record. This has major effects on humans and all species—plant, animal, insect—that live on this earth. The most optimistic view sees global temperatures raised by three degrees by the end of the century. But I have read a lot more pessimistic views which talk about an eight-degree increase in temperature. It can literally kill people and other species. Heatwaves are Australia’s deadliest type of natural hazard.
Climate change also has major impacts on food for all species but humans in particular. This morning I was reading on page 22 of the Canberra Times that Australia is going to start importing wheat for the first time in 12 years. That is due to the current drought, which is at least partly due to climate change. I will just quote a few more human-centred views. Renee Blackman, who is the Director of Gidjee Healing, which is an Indigenous health service in Mt Isa in Queensland, said:
You have got these massive weather events sweeping through our communities, decimating structures, infrastructure—which means health services. If your health service is down, you can’t provide any type of healthcare; it’s almost like you are operating under war conditions sometimes, because things get totally obliterated and you have to build back from scratch, yet you’ve got people who need your assistance.
As she says, it is like a war. And this is happening in our backyard now; it is not just somewhere else. Talking about wars, many military organisations have come to the same conclusion. In October 2014 the Pentagon said that “climate change poses ‘immediate risks’ to national security and will have broad and costly impacts on the way the US carries out its missions”. The Pentagon is not a particularly progressive left-leaning institution, whatever you might say about it.
Some of the people who are saying the most now, thankfully, are young people. They are demanding action before it is too late. I saw a poster recently which said, “You will die of old age; I will die of climate change.” The problem is that they will probably be right about that unless we act now and see that this is a climate emergency. It was really inspiring to march with the school strikers on climate change earlier this year. I quote from the inspirational activist Greta Thunberg. In a TEDx speech she said:
Now we are almost at the end of my talk and this is where people usually start talking about hope—solar panels, wind power, circular economy, and so on. But
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