Greens WA spokesperson on Climate Change, Robin Chapple MLC, today called for a serious response to the overwhelming evidence of serious climate change articulated in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).
The AR5 report bears similar outcome scenarios to the work done by the scientific community in Australia and verifies the findings and recommendations of the Greenhouse88 national conference held by the CSIRO, the WA Water Resources Council and the Environmental Protection Authority in Perth in 1988.
“Unfortunately over the last 25 years little if anything has been achieved because the debate has focused on believers and non-believers and not the science, if we had not listened to science in the past then the world would still be flat” said Mr Chapple.
“It is interesting that Planning Minister John Day has just identified that the Port Kennedy development, on the coast of Warnbro Sound, had become financially unviable in light of new climate change predictions.
“These climate change predictions are not new they were clearly identified in the coastal studies done by the Lands Administration Department in 1988”.
Areas of high risk identified by the Lands Administration Department in 1988 and now AR5 included Busselton, Lancelin, Coral Bay, Derby, Mandurah, Bunbury, Karratha and Port Hedland as well as many fragile estuary and coastal lagoon areas.[1]
The Peel Inlet is estimated to grow to an eighth of its present size. Albany's Princess Royal and Oyster harbours will also be significantly enlarged, with similar impacts on the lower reaches of the King and Kalgan rivers.
The existing lakes at Rottnest will be extended and two new lakes will be created, near Barker's Swamp and the Radio Tower.
“The Barnett/Grylls government has ignored the issue of climate change for five long years, sitting on their hands while this state’s emissions have continued their inexorable upward trend. (report).
The sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, memorably said that, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
“With the likely trebling of our emissions as more carbon-intensive developments come on-stream, WA under its current leadership regime will only be adding to what this latest report shows is a problem requiring urgent attention”, continued Mr Chapple.
Greens MLC Lynn MacLaren highlighted the serious response of the Greens –
“AR5 makes it clear that coastal inundation is to become the norm. That is why the Greens Climate Change Readiness (Coastal Planning and Protection) Bill 2013 is ready for parliamentary debate. We saw the need to put planning processes in place now, to adapt to the consequences of climate change and to manage the severe disruption our coastal lifestyle is heading for,” Ms MacLaren said.
The Greens believe WA should invest in the next generation of clean, affordable energy infrastructure as a way of offsetting our spiraling CO2e emissions. Energy 2029 shows that path forward for WA.”
“The WA Premier has told Parliament that his government is committed to meeting the challenge of climate change – he must now stop shirking his responsibility by putting the entire onus of responsibility on the new do nothing federal government, and put some budget resources into addressing the unique difficulties which climate change will present our state”, Mr Chapple concluded.
For more information please contact Robin Chapple on 0409 379 263 or 9486 8255; Lynn MacLaren on 0403 721 951 or 9430 7233;
[1] The maps and predictions prepared by the Lands Administration Department for the national forum, Greenhouse 88, are available in the Battye Library
