Wednesday, 9 March 2022

Climate change

Dr READ (Brunswick) (09:48): It seems as though we are hearing about the effects of climate change every day now. Obviously the floods in south-east Queensland and in New South Wales have been terrible and are ongoing, and people are still being evacuated while others are battling with mould in their houses or insurance claims. It is truly frightening what has been happening up there, but today we heard from Farmers for Climate Action that climate change is affecting our food prices, making our food more expensive. We have heard from researchers that the spread of Japanese encephalitis through the eastern states of Australia, leading to the first death in Victoria, is also climate change related.

This week the UN Secretary-General called on G20 countries to hurry up and close down our coal-fired power stations. He said fossil fuels are a ‘dead end’. When we urge this government to hurry up and phase out fossil fuels and tell us the timetable for phasing out fossil fuels we are met with rhetoric claiming that Victoria is a leader in generating renewable energy. Indeed it is true that we have had an encouraging increase in the development of renewable energy recently. We generate about a third of our electricity from renewables, but South Australia is two thirds, Western Australia is a whisker ahead of us and the ACT is at 100 per cent, so it is time to stop the silence and end the use of fossil fuels.