“We really need scientists leading this debate and not politicians.”
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So said founder of Clean Energy for Eternity Matthew Nott at a public meeting on climate change in Tathra on June 22 that attracted around 120 people. The guest speaker was climate change expert and researcher at the Australian National University Will Steffen.
Dr Nott said since the last federal election Australia has gone backwards on climate change, partly due to the scrapping of the carbon tax.
“It has been replaced with the inefficient and expensive Direct Action policy by the current government, and we’ve seen emissions climb again as a result of that policy,” he said.
Professor Steffen said as Australia signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 it had to do everything it could to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius.
“Our present policies are so far short of that, they’re laughable,” he said.
The professor said climate change was contributing to the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.
“There is no doubt in the scientific community what is driving this event – it is exceptionally high ocean temperatures,” he said.
He knows a scientist who went to the top 1000km of the reef, the worst part affected by bleaching, who said the stench from the dying organisms was overpowering.
Professor Steffen said this election it was very important to get climate change, renewable energy, the Great Barrier Reef and our economy as an issue, because they were all bound up together.
When a member of the audience asked the professor what was the most useful thing to do to tackle climate change, he said it was to take political action.
“The Greens have the best policy, but no matter what kick this government out,” Professor Steffen said.
The Greens’ candidate for Eden-Monaro Tamara Ryan, who spoke at the meeting, said her party’s costed climate policy was to ensure at least a 90 per cent renewable energy sector by 2030, in line with what scientists are saying is necessary to keep temperature rises below two degrees.