Australia’s new Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr has focused on climate change in his first speech to the Senate, saying he has believed that human activity is changing the climate since the 1980s and is concerned that it is also altering the oceans. “But what if this shock, this chemical experiment with the Earth’s atmosphere is only the first of a series of shocks we might sustain?” he said. Pity the US Republican Presidential contenders couldn’t see it that way.

By David Henry for Bloomberg (15 Mar 2012):

As Republicans head toward a showdown in the presidential primary race, the two main protagonists have something in common: They both reject anthropogenic climate change.

Mitt Romney did a policy about-face in October last year when he said: “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.” This was after he had told a New Hampshire audience four months earlier that global warming was man-made and that reducing greenhouse gases was important.

Rick Santorum, for his part, has been consistently unapologetic about his climate skepticism. “The apostles of this pseudo-religion believe that America and its people are the source of the Earth’s temperature. I do not,” he wrote last week. He claimed to be the only Republican candidate not to have bowed to “this liberal orthodoxy.”

So as March temperatures are forecast to reach more than 80 degrees Fahrenheit in some parts of the U.S. next week, well above average for this season, it’s timely to consider a government study from a nation that has the most to lose from rising global temperatures. Australia — the world’s driest inhabited continent, whose two-decade economic expansion can be largely attributed to the mining of fossil fuels — has just released its review of greenhouse gases. The results leave little wiggle room for climate skeptics.

Greenhouse gases have risen to their highest level since modern humans evolved and emissions from human activity were increasingly affecting the country’s temperatures. “Multiple lines of evidence show that global warming continues and that human activities are mainly responsible,” said the State of the Climate 2012 report from the CSIRO, the national science agency, and the Bureau of Meteorology. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at 390 parts per million last year, it said, the highest level in 800,000 years.

This is a grim warning from the CSIRO, which was accused in the Australian press of having compromising ties to the coal industry as recently as two years ago. If those claims were true, the agency has just done an about-face as impressive as the former Massachusetts governor’s.

When Romney or Santorum turns to the climate debate during the general election campaign against President Barack Obama this year, he will be thinking about the next four years. Maybe that’s the main reason voters shouldn’t believe a word they’re saying.

(David Henry is an editor for Bloomberg View.)

Source: www.bloomberg.com

ABC News (22 March 2012):

Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr has focused on climate change in his first speech to the Senate.

Senator Carr was sworn in as a senator and a minister earlier this month.

He has described it as an honour that has come years after he thought he had ended his parliamentary service.

“Norman Mailer, the American novelist who I counted as a friend, said on one occasion he had an adolescent crush on the profession of writer, and I could say that as an adolescent I had a crush on the profession of being a Labor member of Parliament,” he said.

Senator Carr says he has believed that human activity is changing the climate since the 1980s and is concerned that it is also altering the oceans.

“But what if this shock, this chemical experiment with the Earth’s atmosphere is only the first of a series of shocks we might sustain?” he said.

“What about the change in the chemical composition of the oceans as they absorb more and more of the carbon our civilisations have been emitting?”

Senator Carr also used his speech to outline his vision for the way Australia can help promote tolerance between cultures and religions.

“Running foreign policy is about protecting our national interest… but it is also about being an exemplary global citizen when it comes to protecting human rights and protecting the world’s oceans,” he said.

“To this I would like to add that in foreign policy we may also promote and defend cultural diversity – the idea of a planet of seven billion that celebrates and does not deny its contradictions.”

He says Australia can do more to encourage dialogue between faiths in the region and work with Indonesia, which is the largest Islamic nation in the world.

“We can make sure that our multicultural society continues to tick over,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s a need to fetishise multiculturalism or to give it a capital M, but simply to relax into our easy-going ethnic and cultural diversity based on tolerance and respect.”

Balancing relationships

Later, Mr Carr told 7.30′s Chris Uhlmann that Australia has struck the right balance between China and the United States.

He said it is something that both side of politics can take credit for.

But he said there are challenges to be dealt with in the nation’s relationship with China.

“For the first time in our history the nation with which we have the major economic relationship is a nation with different values and a different form of government from our own,” he said.

“One can’t say there aren’t challenges in this relationship, but ultimately, we don’t have to choose America or China.”

Mr Carr says the United States’ rotating troop deployment in the Top End, announced earlier this year by US president Barack Obama, should not be seen as an anti-Chinese gesture.

“It’s no revelation to Beijing that a rock-solid cornerstone of Australian security is that relationship we enjoy with the United States. This is in the Australian DNA,” he said.

Source: www.abc.net.au