2017-02-21
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — Last Wednesday I was pleased to attend a forum hosted by the Bayside Climate Action Group, which has just celebrated 10 years of advocacy for action on climate change. Speakers at the sold-out forum included Alison Rowe, CEO of the Moreland Energy Foundation and chair of the Future Business Council, and Laura Sykes, schools program coordinator of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. MC for the forum was Victoria McKenzie-McHarg, president of the Climate Action Network Australia. Keynote speaker, scientist, author, presenter and Climate Council councillor Professor Tim Flannery spoke about why we are in a climate emergency. The year 2016 was the hottest year on record, as were 10 of the last 12 months. Heatwaves affecting people and animals are more intense and longer lasting. Aquatic warming is killing marine ecosystems, including the Great Barrier Reef. Drought, bushfire and flood cycles are getting deeper. Extreme rainfall is causing more local and coastal flooding.
More detail is available on the Climate Council website, which I encourage everyone to visit. Temperatures in eight months of 2016 broke global heat records, with March representing the highest departure from average for any month since records began in 1880. The year 2016 is the 40th consecutive year with above-average global temperatures, and no-one aged under 40 has lived in a year with global average temperatures at or below the global 20th century average. If you do not think this is a climate emergency, then you are just not paying attention.