Published by Senator Grant Mitchell on 07 December 2009
My concern continues to escalate about climate change and our government’s unwillingness to do anything about it. I cannot understand how they can really think that action is not required urgently.
I think it cannot be said much better than the Nobel Peace Laureates who issued this statement from their recent 10th annual summit in Berlin in November:
“Climate change now poses an unacceptable risk of catastrophic and irreversible harm at a global scale, possibly even within the next decade, threatening global peace, human security and development, and putting the sustainability of human society in jeopardy.
Current negotiations are based on scientific information that is several years out-of-date. The latest science indicate that, on the balance of probabilities, we have badly underestimated both the extent and speed of climate change, to the point that we now run a rapidly increasing risk of sudden failure of some part of the climatic system, possibly via tipping points which may prove irreversible.
Despite 20 years of negotiation, virtually nothing has been done so far to contain the problem, and there is no sign of that changing at the forthcoming Copenhagen meeting. Excellent work is underway by concerned governments and organizations, but it is now clear that conventional processes will not deliver the speed and extent of change required to avert potentially catastrophic impacts.
New thinking is required to break through politics-as-usual. We have run out of time to take a graduated response and we must now move to global emergency action. This will require cooperation across the spectrum, involving civil society, public and private sectors, bipartisan political involvement, on an unprecedented scale. As the world’s poorest suffer most from but contribute least to climate change, and as we bear responsibility for future generations, climate justice must be a guiding principle.