Abbott out of step on climate change

As Tony Abbott continues his embarrassing trip overseas it is fitting that we highlight the growing gap between the views of US President Barack Obama and Abbott on the key issue of climate change.

 

The Italian and Swedish ambassadors recently expressed bemusement that the Abbott government had not opted for a market mechanism in combating changing climatic patterns. Indeed, the European Union has also expressed concern that climate change has been dropped from the G20 summit in November.

 

Obama sees climate change as a “creeping national security crisis” and the USA’s top scientific research group, the National Research Council, has already warned that “climate extremes are going to be more frequent” and that “humans are pouring carbon dioxide and other climate altering gases into the atmosphere at a rate never before seen”.

 

Instead Abbott prefers to focus on lower income groups to resolve his exaggerated “debt and deficit disaster”. Of far greater concern to all of us should be the mortgaging of our generational future by failing to respond adequately to climate change.

Frank Carroll