The Dirty Australian

AUSTRALIA is establishing major new green

house polluting industries just as new evi dence is highlighting the warming of the world’s atmosphere and the damaging extremes of weather that that process spawns. There is no need to tell drought affected farmers in Fiji or people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea who would have starved to death if emergency aid had not reached them during the recent drought, that the weather has not been kind in the last year. What they will not want to hear is that these events are becoming more common.

Research conducted by scientists at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and the French meteorological service, Meteo France, reveals that in the past 20 years there has been a significant change in the climate in the Pacific.

Dr Jim Salinger who led the research, says records show that in 1977 there was an abrupt movement eastwards of the vast belt of storms and wind called the South Pacific Convergence Zone (which lies between Fiji, Tonga and Samoa). ‘That date marks the start of significant changes in the Pacific Basin, an abrupt shift in the climate of North America, an acceleration of global warming and an increase in the frequency of El Nino events’ Dr Salinger said. It was the latest El Nino event that caused this year’s drought that stretched from Indonesia in the West to Tonga in the East. Over the past 20 years, the shift in the South Pacific Convergence Zone has caused a 30 per cent increase in average rainfall in the northern Cook Islands, Tokelau and north-eastern French Polynesia while New Caledonia, Fiji and the southern Cooks have suffered a reduction in rain of 15 per cent. These are not just short term anomalies, according to Gerald Miles, Head of Environmental Management and Planning at the region’s peak environment organisation SPREP (South Pacific Regional Environment Program). It highlights the need for Pacific Island countries to realise that these changes are likely to continue to impact on them for the foreseeable future,' Mr Miles said. At last year’s crucial Kyoto climate summit, at which industrialised countries pledged to reduce their Greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 per cent, Australia was labelled a ‘Greenhouse pariah’ for demand ing, and finally winning, the right to increase its emissions by 8 per cent. Now, the Howard government is again show ing itself to be out of step with world opinion by offering big financial incentives to help establish a massive new

Greenhouse polluting industry, near Gladstone in Queensland. The Stuart Basin development is a joint venture

between the Australian-based companies southern Pacific Petroleum and central Pacific Minerals and the Canadian oil company Suncor, and will produce shale oil, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. So big is this project that Greenpeace estimates that by 2010, it could on its own, increase Australia’s Greenhouse emissions by up to 1.5 per cent on 1990 levels. This, along with 2 more major energy devel opments in Queensland and others in Western Australia, will make it difficult for Australia to stay within its Greenhouse emission limit set at Kyoto. Obviously, the attraction of the project, which could absorb up to $2.5 bil lion in investment, is the jobs it will bring.

Both the Federal and State governments have chipped in to help get the project off the ground, Canberra handing over As 7 million in grants and the Queensland government offering sll million to build a bulk liquid tanker berth in Gladstone. In addition, the Federal government has promised around S4O million in excise exemptions. As much as jobs are needed in regional Queensland, it is high ly questionable whether this is the best way to provide them. Greenpeace claims the Stuart Basin project will not be economically viable without government financial help and that it will, in fact, be a job killer when compared to alternative, more environmentally friendly investment in renewable energy. Its climate scientist, Erwin Jackson, says that for every million dollars put in to the shale oil industry 0.5 jobs are created compared with the 35-50 jobs that would be created with the same investment in renew able energy. During her recent visit to Australia, the United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, made it clear to John Howard that the world is still watching and assess ing Australia’s Greenhouse record.

At her speech to the Asia Society at the Sydney Opera House she nominated global climate change as The most comprehensive long-term environmental challenge facing us all’. As she pointed out, leading scientists agree that Greenhouse gases are warming the planet and that as a result the planet is changing, not necessarily for the better. ‘Unless we act, sea levels will continue to rise through out the next century, swamping some areas and putting mil lions of people at greater risk to coastal storms. We will also see more heat related deaths, more serious air pollu tion, increased allergic disorders and more widespread malaria, cholera and other infectious disease’ Mrs Albright said.

The US secretary of State had a message which John Howard and the Queensland government would do well to heed. ’The one thing we truly cannot afford to do is wait and see. For if the warnings are right, the cost of reversing climate change and cleaning up the damage will be infinitely greater than the cost of preventing it. Our Choice is clear. We can keep pumping more gases into the atmo sphere every year, invite more severe climate change, and let future generations deal with the consequences. Or we can act prudently to protect our planet, our children’s home,’ Madeleine Albright said. ■

Jemima Garrett

Wellington