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Trying to avoid the reality of climate change
Ian Dunlop, The Age (Australia)
This may yet turn out to be the year in which Australia gets serious about climate change. Community concern has been growing for some time, but even last month, during Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth visit, the Federal Government preferred denial, epitomised by Industry and Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane’s immortal comment on the film: “It’s just entertainment, and really that’s all it is.”
For far too long Australian debate has remained stuck on the question of whether climate change is man-made, a debate that we will not know the answer to for decades. Meanwhile, scientific opinion has moved strongly to the view that human activity, particularly emissions of greenhouse gases, probably is a major contributor. But what measures should we be putting in place to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to it?
In the past week those risks have become real as we focus on the full implications of high temperatures, drought and water shortage. Finally, it seems that ministers are starting to acknowledge that climate change may have something to do with it – yet Federal Government policy remains confused and contradictory
(24 Oct 2006)
Submitter Baecon Boy writes: “Ian Dunlop is on fire again with the Australian Government’s lack of action on climate change. A harsh drought seems to have made them realise that there is a problem.”
Climate change could lead to more failed states: British FM
Agence France Presse via Yahoo!News
Global warming is exacerbating disputes over access to water and food resources, and could lead to more failed states, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett warned in an interview published in the Financial Times.
“There are nations in a very delicate condition and (global warming) will tip some of them over into being failed states,” Beckett told the newspaper in Berlin.
(24 Oct 2006)
UK ministers bow to pressure for climate bill
Patrick Wintour, Guardian
Green campaigners say emissions targets are not tough enough
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The government will today agree plans for a climate change bill setting new long-term targets to cut carbon emissions in Britain in response to intense pressure from environmental campaigners.
An independent body to advise on whether government policies will meet the green targets will be created under proposals to be tabled by the environment secretary, David Miliband, when he makes a presentation to the environment and energy cabinet committee today. The bill will be in the next Queen’s Speech on November 15.
But the government is resisting the idea of a law requiring a cut in carbon emissions year on year, arguing that unforeseen factors, such as extreme weather or unexpectedly strong economic growth, can mean targets can be missed from one year to the next.
(25 Oct 2006)
When it comes to global warming, market rule poses a mortal danger
Jonathan Freedland, Guardian
Gentle regulation will simply not suffice for a problem this big. Governments must act – swiftly and substantially
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Whose job is it to stop climate change? For a while, it’s seemed like it’s up to us, as individuals, to change our personal behaviour. Witness the BBC news item this week, exposing Britons’ slobby habit of leaving electronic appliances on stand-by, in contrast with the conscientious, energy-efficient Germans. David Cameron’s wind turbine on the roof, even his cycling, have fed the notion that greenism is now all about personal conduct.
But we should be careful: climate change is too big a problem to be solved simply by virtuous individuals hopping on a bus instead of taking the car, or disconnecting the tumble dryer, valuable though those moves are. This is one responsibility that can’t be saddled solely on activists and consumers. This is a job for government.
Which means governments, no less than individuals, have to rethink their behaviour.
(25 Oct 2006)
Is the carbon-trade business really ‘green’?
Charles J. Hanley, The Austin American-Statesman
System for combating greenhouse-gas emissions has forsaken its principles, critics say.
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As the world grows warmer, poorer nations are helping the rich by reining in heat-trapping gases in a multibillion-dollar “carbon trade” that is outrunning its founding principles and spawning conflicts of interest and possible abuse.
(22 Oct 2006)
