Drought Makes Climate Change Burning Issue In Australia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Drought Makes Climate Change Burning Issue In Australia*
The reality of drought in Australia is biting in an election year.
by Lawrence Bartlett
Sydney (AFP) Jan 25, 2007
Australia's conservative leader signalled his acceptance Thursday that
climate change will be a hot election issue this year, unveiling a
multi-billion-dollar water rescue package for the world's driest
inhabited continent. John Howard, previously criticised as a
climate-change sceptic over his refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on
global warming, described himself in a major address to the National
Press Club as a "climate-change realist".
Howard and his close ally, US President George W. Bush, lead the only
two developed countries that have refused to ratify the UN protocol
aimed at reducing the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for climate
change.
But in the face of the worst drought in more than a century and opinion
polls showing increasing numbers of Australians are concerned about
global warming, Howard has begun scrambling to counter criticism of his
lack of action.
Using the high-profile annual address to the press club on the eve of
Australia Day, Howard put climate change firmly on the agenda ahead of
elections due by the end of the year, saying Australia's water use was
unsustainable.
"In a protracted drought and with the prospect of long-term climate
change we need radical and permanent change," he said.
"I regard myself as a climate-change realist. That means looking at the
evidence as it emerges and responding with policies that preserve
Australia's competitiveness and play to her strengths."
He announced a 10-billion (7.8-billion US) dollar plan aimed at
protecting dwindling water supplies in the vast isolated island, where
an already parched centre has people and agriculture clinging to the edges.
The move comes two months after the government's top science body warned
in a special report that global warming could force temperatures in
parts of Australia up by more than six degrees Celsius by 2070.
Annual rainfall in vital agricultural regions could drop by 40 percent
over the same period, turning farms into dustbowls, the Commonwealth
Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO) said.
A key element of Howard's 10-point plan to better manage the nation's
lifeblood involves a three-billion-dollar federal government takeover of
the country's biggest river system, the Murray-Darling Basin, from the
four states currently controlling it.
"This is our great opportunity to fix a great national problem; it can
only be solved if we surmount our parochial differences -- it can only
be realised if, above all, we think as we should, on the eve of
Australia Day, overwhelmingly as Australians," he said.
The plan also includes pumping six billion dollars into the biggest
modernisation of irrigation infrastructure in Australia's history and
1.5 billion dollars into water-saving measures for farmers.
In another sign of election battle lines being drawn over climate
change, Howard earlier in the week promoted a star recruit to his
Liberal Party's parliamentary ranks to the environment portfolio.
Former high-profile advocate, businessman and merchant banker Malcolm
Turnbull will take on the opposition Labor Party's own star performer in
the environment role -- former rock star and Midnight Oil frontman Peter
Garrett.
The Australian Greens party welcomed the water plan, saying Howard was
"reluctantly recognising the impacts of climate change and acknowledging
that a long-term approach is needed".
"It is a pity that it has taken an election year and a battering in the
polls to force his hand, and a shame this could not have happened much
sooner," the Greens said in a statement.
Source: Agence France-Presse