Australia most hurt by change in climate

Courier Mail
30/11/2007 Page: 11

AUSTRALIA is likely to be damaged more than any other developed country by climate change, a senior Rudd Government-linked climate change expert said yesterday. Ross Garnaut, tipped to be appointed by Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd to a climate change role in the new government, said yesterday the impact of warming on agriculture and water supplies was beyond doubt.

Delivering the inaugural ST Lee Lecture on Asia at the Australian National University, Professor Garnaut said Australia faced a worse and more urgent problem in addressing dangerous climate change than had been thought. If Australia did not get its policy right, it risked becoming a climate change loser on the world stage.

Professor Garnaut, an economist commissioned by the state and territory governments to conduct a review of Australia's approach to change, said the world was enjoying a platinum age which had helped alleviate global poverty, improved Asia-Pacific security and Australian prosperity. "The challenge is to reconcile the longevity of the platinum age with efficient mitigation of climate change and adaptation to the change already occurring," he said.

Australia faced major climate change impacts because of its dry and highly variable environment, the predicted reduction in rainfall in southern latitudes and our location surrounded by developing countries which also were disproportionately affected. On the positive side, Australia had exceptionally rich resources for solar, geothermal and wind energy and possibly for biofuels from the savannahs that currently made minor contributions to food production.

"We have large resources of high quality (low emissions per unit of energy) coal, which means that our share of the global coal supply would rise under an effective global mitigation regime," Professor Garnaut said. "We have large deposits of natural gas and uranium, the exports of which would increase in a world of major and effective mitigation." Professor Garnaut said when Australia ratified Kyoto in Bali next month, it would strengthen the nation's voice in global discussions.