Hansard: Commonwealth Parliamentary Association International Conference on Climate Change, Gardiner
Author: Philip Gardiner
Published on: 19-October-2010
Phil made a statement to the house on his recent visit to London as an Australian delegate to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association International Conference on Climate Change, held in mid-July.
HON PHILIP GARDINER: I wish to say a few words about a conference concerning climate change that I attended in London. Perhaps it was the wrong title for the conference. I wished to talk to members as one group of leaders of our community considering a very important issue, which has once again emerged and about which, once again, we need to make decisions.
One of the people who addressed us at that conference was my colleague Hon Giz Watson. Dr Janet Woollard from the lower house also addressed us. The current chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, Mr James Smith, also addressed us. He and his colleagues were the authors of a booklet put out by Shell, which is a surprising booklet for a company whose business is fossil fuel energy and is one of the big corporations of the world. The foreword of the booklet began by stating that never before has humanity faced such a challenging outlook for energy and the planet. Those words almost recall the words used by our former Prime Minister Mr Rudd. It continues by stating that this can be summed up in five words—more energy, less carbon dioxide. Some very eminent people addressed us at that conference, including Mr James Smith.
However, the reason I want to talk briefly tonight is to try to help us identify what is scientifically proven and what is not, because I think that we are involved in a whole mishmash of political statements, some based on science and some absolutely bereft of science, so that we are mostly confused. I want just to see if I can help us to actually unravel that confusion. I may fail in this, but I think it is important for us to give it a chance.
The Chief Scientific Adviser to the government of the United Kingdom gave us an address. He said that the killer is carbon dioxide. When we analyse what the science says, it is irrefutable that carbon dioxide has increased in our atmosphere. It has increased over the past 60, 70 and 80 years by around 250 parts per million to the current level of about 378 parts per million. It is scientifically measurable and scientifically irrefutable. It is the highest level we have had since the beginning of the industrial period. Members might remember that the one thing the Copenhagen conference got close to agreeing upon was that it did not want the temperature to increase by more than two degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times. That is calculated quite easily to be caused by a level of 450 parts per million, which is not much more than where we are currently at 378 parts per million. That is the first scientific fact. The second scientific fact is that carbon dioxide is a complex molecule able to absorb radiant heat. Nitrogen cannot and oxygen cannot; it is only this tiny fraction of our atmosphere of carbon dioxide that does it. It absorbs radiant heat and therefore contributes to an increase in temperature, which then causes water to evaporate, which releases more energy and increases the energy again with the kinetic energy that is released, and therefore has the capacity to increase the temperature of the planet. The third scientific measurable fact is that we as mankind are belching out carbon dioxide into the air in the large quantities. Those three things are measurable, and they are not to do with climate change; all they are to do with is global warming. That is what has been proven; that is the global warming aspect that we have.
After that, it is for each of us to make our own assessment of what is happening. That is an issue of probability and risk management, because global warming can lead to climate change in Western Australia and across the whole world, of course. But it is not the only factor that influences the climate. Those who watched Q&A last night will have seen someone implying that scientists are saying that the only factor affecting climate is carbon dioxide. That is just not the fact; other factors also affect the climate. There are changes to the axis of the earth, which might wobble, or the ellipse of the earth around the sun, which might change a bit to affect the pressure belts around the earth and affect our climate. The thing we have added is mankind’s belching of carbon dioxide into the air. As I have said, we know how much it has increased and we know that it absorbs radiant heat, thereby increasing the temperature.
When we consider what the implications are, it is up to each of us individually to make that decision and assess the risks. If it is affecting our climate here, will that damage things? If it is affecting the melting of ice and raising the sea level, is that much of a risk? These are the kinds of things we have to make up our own minds about, but when we start talking about what those risks are—which we need to do—it is only then that we can decide whether it is worthwhile doing something now, at whatever cost that might be. We all know that the models say that there is not much of an economic growth factor in an emissions trading scheme, but if we want to say that it is a big factor, that is fine; let us measure it against the alternative. The alternative could be big storms and rising sea levels. As Hon Giz Watson and I learned at this conference, Bangladesh and many other developing countries are very concerned. How many people do members think might be displaced in Bangladesh as a result of increased storms and rising sea levels? Compared with those numbers, the numbers of boat people are nothing.
These are the risks that each of us have to assess. We see climate change possibly happening in the Wheatbelt; we see it possibly happening in the eastern states, with the violent storms and snows, but again, it is up to us to individually decide. I just hope that we can all get our heads together and decide quickly, in case the risks of not doing anything, or of not doing enough, will be so much bigger than the consequences that we might leave for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.
