<strong>Media Release</strong>
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
All Australians should be alarmed at the accelerating rate of global warming highlighted by melting polar ice and extreme fires, the Australian Greens said today.
"Climate change is exacerbating bushfires in Australia because of higher temperatures, higher evaporation rates and changed rainfall patterns, as confirmed today by the chief of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, Kevin O'Loughlin," Greens climate change spokesperson Senator Christine Milne said in Hobart.
"At the same time there is more news about the impact of climate change on the polar regions, with US researchers having calculated that the Arctic will be without ice in summer by 2040 or earlier because of the impact of carbon emissions.
"There is no time to delay. Australia cannot afford to wait for strategies like nuclear power and carbon capture and storage that will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, after which time it will be too late to stop catastrophic climate change.
"The federal government must immediately introduce a national cap on Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, implement an emissions trading scheme and set a national energy efficiency target with policies to achieve it."
Katrina Willis
Adviser
Senator Christine Milne
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See also <a href="http://www.candobetter.org/node/34"> "We Fiddle as the Continent Turns to Dust"</a> by Paul Sheehan.
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