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28 January 2011, Page: 4
THIS is an odd message from a government struggling to win credibility on climate policy. The horrific floods of the past month cannot be directly blamed on the increasing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere the La Nina over the Pacific is the primary culprit. But they are in line with what scientists have been warning is coming.
As recently as November, the Queensland government released advice on how to plan for the greater flood risk due to extreme events linked to manmade climate change. The world's biggest reinsurer, Munich Re, says the number of natural catastrophes has already increased dramatically nearly tripling around the globe over three decades. In Australia in the 1980s, there were regularly fewer than 10 extreme events a year, and never more than 27. Since 1998 there have been no fewer than 28, and regularly more than 40.
How then to respond to an extreme flood? According to Prime Minister Julia Gillard: by cutting nearly $1.6 billion from programs that were supposed to reduce emissions. As some green industry leaders wryly noted, climate programs have been stripped of funding to fix railways needed for Queensland's coal industry. Subsidies for fossil fuel industries remained untouched. In fairness, some of the programs abandoned were dogs.
Few will mourn the loss of cash-for-clunkers, which would have done next to nothing for the environment. But it is not unreasonable to think the clunkers money could have been redirected into developing renewable energy and the money for flood recovery found elsewhere. The government appears to have accepted the counsel of its climate committee adviser, Rod Sims, who believes a carbon price will enable other climate policies to be dropped. Gillard isn't waiting for a carbon price to get started.
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