Australian news - 12/09/2014

Isn't it tragic when people start to come round to a realisation of the truth when it's too late.  

Politically, I could have told Australians (and did warn one friend) that, however bad the Gillard government was, voting for Abbott was a insane disaster. Australians seem to be realising more quickly than kiwis what a disastrous decision they made

Poor planning leaves Australia exposed to climate change and massive damage bills, CSIRO says

ABC,

9 December, 2014

As Sydney and Brisbane clean up from severe storms and the planet heads towards its hottest year on record, the CSIRO is warning the damage caused by extreme weather could cost Australia more than $1 trillion.

The ABC has obtained advice from the nation's premier science agency warning climate change and poor planning were leaving the nation increasingly exposed to natural disasters.

The CSIRO draft discussion paper said the cost of replacing homes and other buildings exposed to bushfires, inland flooding and coastal inundation could almost double by 2100 to $1.38 trillion.

"All evidence suggests that the current trend of increasing disaster costs will continue into the future with a direct impact on Commonwealth expenditure," the CSIRO said.

"Climate change is likely to increase this trend in the longer term for many hazards."

Climate scientist Professor Andy Pitman from the University of New South Wales said for now much of the problem was coming from poor planning decisions.

"People are building increasingly beautiful houses close to bush or close to the oceans, and it shouldn't be a surprise if those are vulnerable to climate change," he said.

It mirrored analysis done by Risk Frontiers, a research centre sponsored by the insurance industry to understand natural hazard risks.

"If you look at the 2009 Black Saturday fires - in two of the towns most severely damaged - 25 per cent of destroyed buildings were located physically within the bushland boundary," chief research officer Dr Ryan Crompton said.

"Sixty per cent of the destroyed buildings were within 10 metres of [the bushland boundary], so clearly there was high risk in those areas."

More cyclones and greater intensity of rain tipped

Risk Frontiers said analyses of long-term trends in insurance or economic disaster loss histories had not so far been attributed to climate change.

Professor Pitman said if the climate continued to change, so too would the vulnerability of some communities.

"We know it's going to be hotter, we know there'll be intensification of heavy rainfall that will tend to exacerbate flood risk," Professor Pitman said.

"There are hints of changes of distribution of cyclones and there's evidence of changes in the frequency of cyclones and we suspect on the intensity of cyclones.

"We might start to see cyclones in areas we haven't seen previously and that builds phenomenal levels of vulnerability into regions that have been developed without worrying about cyclone risk."

Townsville's James Cook University Cyclone Testing Centre director David Henderson is researching how to cheaply make older homes more resilient to disasters.

"We're actually saving a lot of money by mitigating for this damage now as opposed to waiting and fixing it after," he said.

According to Dr Henderson, it was up to seven times more expensive to repair a property than to protect it in the first place.

Documents showed the CSIRO would continue to investigate options for the government to budget for climate risk.

They included considering:

• allowances for specific potential liabilities (for example for the National Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements)
• a statement of climate risks in the budget papers.
• a discussion of longer-term implications of climate risks for the Commonwealth's fiscal position in the Intergenerational Report.

The warning comes as the Climate Action Tracker, produced by an independent group of scientists, said temperatures were set to rise by about three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times by 2100.

Fairfax Ipsos poll shows climate change concerns heating up around Tony Abbott

Six out of 10 of Australians think Tony Abbott's Direct Action policy has left the country with an inadequate policy response to the problem of global warming, according to the latest Fairfax Ipsos poll.

SMH,

9 December, 2014

The finding comes as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop attends a major international climate change conference in Peru, accompanied at the Prime Minister's insistence, by Trade Minister and global warming sceptic, Andrew Robb.

His inclusion is being seen as a signal to those within the Coalition in favour of more ambitious emissions reduction targets that Mr Abbott remains opposed to ramping up policy even as the rest of the world positions to do so.

The phone survey of 1401 people taken between December 4 and 6, showed 57 per cent of respondents believed the Coalition's proposed Direct Action policy was "too little" to deal with global warming.

Even a healthy slice of conservative voters at 30 per cent, agreed with that proposition.

The finding will give the besieged Abbott government further food for thought over the summer break after the same poll showed it stuck in an election-losing position with a sliding primary vote and support for the Prime Minister personally, deteriorating sharply.

While 33 per cent of voters described the current policy settings as "about right", the majority disapproval suggests voters have not bought Mr Abbott's triumphant line that 2014 had been a year of delivery and achievement in Canberra.

In particular, it raises questions over the abolition of the carbon tax, which has been trumpeted as a signature achievement in its own right.

Voters appear to be saying they wanted Julia Gillard's carbon tax deleted - perhaps principally because it was born of a broken promise - but most remain profoundly concerned about global warming.

The clamour for tougher policies reveals voters have not abandoned belief in climate change science and want their government to provide a sufficient policy response in line with international action.

Tellingly, given the future expenditure of at least $2.55 billion on the Direct Action's emissions reduction fund, only 7 per cent of respondents think the policy is "too much".

Among Greens voters, nine out of 10 say Direct Action is "too little" - a figure that drops to 76 per cent among committed Labor voters.

Six out of 10 Coalition voters rate the government they back as having the policy setting "about right" with 17 per cent of Labor voters agreeing.

The poll also shows what has often been asserted in politics since the issue arose: that climate and environmental protection issues are stronger among the populations gathered in the mote highly educated inner-city areas.

Sixty per cent of capital city respondents said "too little" was being done by the government, while outside the cities 11 per cent of respondents thought the current approach by Canberra was "too much", compared with 7 per cent of all respondents.

Mr Abbott's personal approval dipped steeply through November and into December with 57 per cent disapproving of his performance against 38 per cent approving. That gave him an approval rating of minus 19 compared to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on plus 5.

The overall slide in support for the government may have been influenced by the sharp focus on climate change around the G20 in November, despite the efforts of the Prime Minister to minimise that attention.

Poll: How important are Tony Abbott's climate change policies to you?

I could support Tony Abbott if he took stronger action on climate change.

10%

I wouldn't support Tony Abbott no matter what his climate change policy was.

84%

I support Tony Abbott already.