World climate report: need for urgent govt action

World climate expert report points to need for urgent government action

Forecasts in the latest report of the world's expert climate group point to the need for urgent action by the Howard government to secure the nation's future, the Australian Greens said today.

The draft report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), as reported in The Guardian newspaper in Britain, has revised the potential rise in global temperatures with consequences such as the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and the disruption of the Gulf Stream ocean current.

Australian Greens climate change spokesperson Senator Christine Milne said the revised modelling meant the Howard government's reliance on fossil fuel placed Australia at even greater risk than previously thought.

"The risks for Australia and the world arising from this latest climate modelling are alarming," Senator Milne said in Canberra.

"In the face of this revised potential for serious climate disruption it is no longer tenable for the government to shackle Australia to a fossil fuel future based on an experimental technology - geosequestration.

"The government is jeopardising Australia's future security when it could be putting more funding, effort, and policy support into energy efficiency and the proven renewable energy technologies, as Germany and
Japan have done.

"For a decade, the Howard government has failed to show leadership on the critical issue of climate change.

"If the government does not act now it will be remembered for its monumental failure to protect our precious world."

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