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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-07-06 Daily Xml
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CLIMATE CHANGE

The Hon. M. PARNELL (17:21): I move:

That this council—

1. Notes the recent release of The Critical Decade report and the separate South Australian Impacts report by the Climate Commission and the call for urgent action outlined in the reports; and

2. Calls on the state government to intensify its efforts to respond to the challenge of climate change.

On 23 May this year the Climate Commission released their first major report entitled 'The Critical Decade'. The Climate Commission was established to provide an independent source of scientific advice on climate change, free of the sometimes bizarre public debate such as that which is currently occurring.

This, the first report of the commission, was prepared by Commissioner Professor Will Steffen, a highly respected climate scientist from the Australian National University. It attempts to capture and explain clearly the latest in scientific research on climate change and it was independently reviewed by leading climate scientists from the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and universities in Australia.

The message of the report could not be any clearer: unless Australia takes action before 2020 our way of life is at threat. Time is incredibly precious: emissions must be reduced now if governments want to have any hope of meeting a target of limiting global temperature rises to 2°. Failing to take sufficient action today entails potentially huge risks to our economy, society and way of life into the future.

Here are some of the key messages from the report. Firstly, there is no doubt that the climate is changing. The evidence is overwhelming and it is clear. The atmosphere is warming, the ocean is warming, ice is being lost from glaciers and icecaps and the sea levels are rising. The biological world is changing in response to a warming world. Global surface temperature is rising fast and the last decade was the hottest on record.

Secondly, we are already seeing the social, economic and environmental impacts of a changing climate. With less than 1° of warming globally the impacts are already being felt in Australia. In the last 50 years the number of record hot days in Australia has more than doubled. This has increased the risk of heatwaves and associated deaths, as well as extreme bushfire weather in south-eastern and south-western Australia.

Sea level has risen by 20 centimetres globally since the late 1800s, impacting many coastal communities. Thirdly, human activities, the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation are triggering the changes we are witnessing in the global climate. A very large body of observations, experiments, analysis and physical theory points to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—with carbon dioxide being the most important—as the primary cause of the observed warming. The increase in carbon dioxide emissions is primarily produced by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, as well as by deforestation. Natural factors, like changes in the Earth's orbit or solar activity, cannot explain the worldwide warming trend.

Lastly, the report's message is that this is the critical decade. Decisions we make from now to 2020 will determine the severity of climate change our children and grandchildren experience. Without strong and rapid action, there is a significant risk that climate change will undermine our society's prosperity, health, stability and way of life. To minimise this risk, we must de-carbonise our economy and move to clean energy sources by 2050. That means carbon emissions must peak within the next few years and then strongly decline. The longer we wait to start reducing carbon emissions, the more difficult and costly those reductions become.

I will speak specifically about South Australia, because shortly after the release of 'The critical decade' report an insert on the particular impacts for South Australia was released that brings the story even closer to home. The South Australian insert details three key impacts. The first significant impact on South Australia is that rising temperatures in our state will affect health.

Average yearly temperature in South Australia has risen by almost one 1° Celsius over the past century, and the last decade was South Australia's warmest on record. Temperatures will continue to rise. At present, Adelaide experiences, on average, 17 days out of the year with uncomfortably hot weather, that is, above 35° Celsius. By 2030, the number of extremely hot days could rise to about 23, and by 2070 further increase to as much as 36 days a year.

More record hot days and associated heatwaves increase the risk of heat-related illness and death, particularly in the elderly. In January-February 2009, south-eastern Australia experienced record breaking prolonged temperatures and Adelaide reached its third highest temperature ever at 45.7°. During the 2009 heatwave, direct heat-related hospital admissions increased 14-fold and there was a 16 per cent increase in ambulance call-outs.

During the 2009 heatwave, there were an additional 32.4 deaths, with 23 of these in the 15 to 64 age group. In just a decade, without effective adaptation, heat-related deaths are projected to double. This poses substantial challenges for hospitals, morgues and ambulance services.

The second major impact is that changing rainfall patterns, combined with higher temperatures, pose significant risks to South Australia's agricultural areas and our urban water supplies. There has been a clear decline in rainfall in southern South Australia since 1970. There is some evidence that this decline in rainfall is linked to climate change, and it is more likely than not that the drying trend will continue.

Droughts in our state will become more severe because of higher temperatures, and the drying soil will lead to further additional warming. This will have a significant impact on South Australia's agricultural belt. A continuation of the drying trend would also have large risks for drinking water availability. Research so far suggests the southern Murray-Darling Basin is drying, which has clear implications for water availability in Adelaide and other parts of South Australia.

A prolonged drought in south-eastern Australia from 1997 to 2009 resulted in extremely low river flows in the Murray-Darling Basin, less than 50 per cent of the long-term average. In summary, while much uncertainty remains about specific details of rainfall changes in the future, we can say with considerable certainty that rainfall patterns will change as a result of climate change, and often in unpredictable ways, creating large risks for water availability.

I note that Brad Crouch, writing in this week's Sunday Mail, stated that the federal government has felt duped over South Australia's spin about reducing reliance on the River Murray and that is the reason funding is yet to be secured for the expansion of the Port Stanvac desalination plant to 100 gigalitres. The fact is that this government's plan is for us to still take in, year after year, 50 gigalitres of River Murray water for Adelaide's water supply. According to this report, we are in cloud-cuckoo-land if we think we can keep on doing that until 2050, as the Water for Good plan suggests.

The third major impact is that rising sea levels will exacerbate existing vulnerability in South Australia's coastal towns and infrastructure. On average, sea level rise has risen globally by 3.2 millimetres a year since the early 1990s, affecting many coastal communities. Even more worryingly, sea levels in South Australia have been rising at a rate higher than the global average—approximately 4.6 millimetres per year since the early 1990s, with much variability from year to year.

Globally, sea levels have risen by about 20 centimetres since the late 1800s. Another 20 centimetre increase in sea level by 2050, which is feasible at current projections, would more than double the risk of coastal flooding in Adelaide. A rise of 50 centimetres, which is likely later this century, will lead to very large increases in the frequency of coastal flooding—flooding that is currently considered a one-in-100-year event would occur every year. If members want to get a sense of what that might mean, I would encourage them to look at the maps that are included in the report. Adelaide, as we know, will be fundamentally changed.

The report also states that between 25,200 and 43,000 residential buildings in the state of South Australia may be at risk of flooding towards the end of this century, with a value of between $4.4 billion and $7.4 billion. We are even more vulnerable than most other parts of the country. South Australia has the second highest value of total assets at risk, with over $45 billion worth of houses, buildings and roads at risk of flooding.

We ignore such a stark warning at our peril. A decision not to take action to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a decision to make the problem worse, a decision to cause more hot extremes and to increase sea levels even further. Governments and communities must take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this decade or face enormous social and economic costs in the future.

This report is squarely aimed at us, the members of the 52nd Parliament of the State of South Australia. The choices we make this decade, right now, will shape the long-term climate future for our children and grandchildren. Our climate may be so irreversibly altered that we will struggle to maintain our present way of life. We as members of parliament, during this critical decade, are responsible. We are the custodians for our state during this time. Our job as elected leaders and decision-makers is to ensure that we take the necessary action to protect our community in this critical decade, and the time for action is now; it is not tomorrow.

That brings me to the second and final part of this motion, which is a call for the state government to intensify its efforts to respond to the challenge of climate change. Despite the rhetoric and the many fine words, South Australia still contributes far more than its share to global carbon pollution. Per capita, there are only a handful of places in the world that are worse than South Australia, yet The Critical Decade report clearly reveals how we are also one of the most vulnerable places in the world to a climate shift.

This government is still disproportionately pouring our time, money and energy into road, rather than rail. The baby-step investment in public transport is dwarfed in comparison with major road projects, such as the bizarre elevated South Road Superway.

The mining minister was just last week spruiking a project to convert dirty coal into dirty diesel fuel, and then had the hide to ironically describe this carbon-polluting process as clean and green. Housing SA properties do not have any solar power, denying Housing SA residents access to an energy source that will save them in their power bills at the same time as reducing carbon pollution.

The government continues to approve new housing developments on the urban fringe that lock in failure, such as Buckland Park, whose future residents will have higher average greenhouse pollution than the state average. How remarkably irresponsible is that? So, we are continuing to make things worse and, equally irresponsibly, this government is not doing enough to prepare us for the change that is already occurring.

The last budget again failed to prioritise support for our agricultural sector to prepare for disruptive changes to our food production systems. Our health sector needs to be urgently geared up to respond to heatwave-related illnesses, and there needs to be a comprehensive plan in place for vulnerable coastal communities to respond to rising sea levels and beach loss.

In short, this government must genuinely treat climate change as the real threat that it is. It must urgently decarbonise our economy, stop approving new projects that make things worse and start having an honest conversation with the people of South Australia about what needs to be done. The Legislative Council needs to send a clear message to the government that we want the government to move beyond fine words and to start acting. As the authors of the Climate Commission report state:

Failing to take...action today entails potentially huge risks to our economy, society and way of life into the future. This is the critical decade for action.

As with my previous motion, I can tell members that in the lead-up to the winter break, I will be bringing this motion to a vote on the next Wednesday of sitting.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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