Need to cut carbon emissions

John Pettigrew, Bunbartha Climate Reality Australia Farmers for Climate Action Goulburn Valley Environment Group president

John Pettigrew.

Time is running out for any hope of stabilising runaway climate change that will severely impact the wellbeing of our children, grandchildren and future generations.

I carefully use the phrase ‘‘stabilise climate change’’, for any thought of being able to return to past climates is impossible for hundreds if not thousands of years.

As one example of future impacts, consider Australia’s current fire season — a catastrophic season by any measurement, but predicted to increase by up to a factor of four by the end of this century due to climate change. These are not my words but the words of Professor Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University.

The frequency of these frontal systems is projected to increase, as is our hotter and dryer landscape condition; but what good is talk, you ask?

Talk can at times be no more than symbolic; however, it is also possible that talk can lead to real actions individually, by communities or one would hope by our three levels of government. We need to convince world governments of the urgency and need to collectively work together to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere. That convincing starts with each of us talking to our elected representatives.

With the latest climate conference in Madrid breaking up with little if any advancement, now is the time to put pressure on global governments reluctant to support realistic global action.

We can identify some of these recalcitrant nations easily, with the United States, for example, dramatically withdrawing from the Paris agreement. China and India, developing countries with growing economies and emissions, need to do more, but the negative role Australia has played, starting at Kyoto and through to the latest round of discussions at COP25 in Madrid, is not fully understood.

Australia undermined (reduced) genuine global emission targets at Kyoto and most recently in Madrid declared it will use an accounting loophole to minimise its carbon reduction obligations through to 2030.

We desperately need to talk to all levels of government to bring pressure on Australia at international level to play our part in reducing carbon emissions and put pressure on nations that have the ability to significantly reduce emissions to do so. And let’s not forget why this talk is necessary: to constrain carbon emissions to levels that will not lessen impacts being now experienced, but to hopefully reduce the growth of the most catastrophic of impacts on future generations.

We owe it to our families and future generations to at least try.

Letter in The Shepparton News from John Pettigrew - “Need to cut carbon emissions.”