Floods and fire to increase as climate changes
Although Australia has long been the land of drought and flood, Chief Scientist of Australia, Professor Penny Sacket, last month warned that events like severe flooding were likely to increase. Floods which swallowed three quarters of the Sunshine State left 35 people dead and an economy maimed by $30 billion in damage and lost production. Damage estimates spiralled into the hundreds of millions as waters in NSW and Victoria rose while Western Australia was hit by bushfires in January. The Bureau of Meteorology recorded 2010 as the year of highest annual rainfall in history for areas of Queensland and the Northern Territory, while southwest WA experienced the driest on record.
Despite this evidence, the Federal Government has scrapped $2.8 billion in climate projects to finance the monumental blow that dramatic weather extremes have dealt to livelihoods and infrastructure across the country. Spending has been cut on up to six environmental initiatives, including the Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme, and the Green Car Innovation Fund and the Cleaner Car Rebate Scheme have been dumped.
While leaders have waxed lyrical on the “mateship” and “Aussie spirit” exhibited during these catastrophes, there has been scant discussion in mainstream politics of what actually caused them. Even as NASA declared 2010 the hottest year on record, the government continued to supply the fossil fuel industry with an annual $9 billion in subsidies.
In the 2010-2011 Federal budget, defence spending remained a priority as Labor splashed out $199 million over the next five years to upgrade aviation security, $500 million to improve national security and to counter terrorism, $1.1 billion to protect troops overseas and another $239 million for continued military involvement in Afghanistan.
Director of the Climate Action Network Australia, Georgina Woods, believes the Government should be preventing causalities of climate change.
“Ultimately climate change poses a much more serious threat than war. War can be resolved, we can avoid it. Climate change will reach a particular level where we no longer have any control over its effects. We have to start taking it as seriously or more seriously than national security.”
Ms Woods said that governments should change the way cities are built and ensure that populations have natural buffers to absorb increasing storm surges.
“Lots of recommendations have been made, but mainly it’s a question of flipping a switch in our minds to begin tackling climate change.”
BY MILLICENT CAFFREY
