Kooyong results - Petro wins again and green vote holds well

I would like to thank the many people who helped out during the Kooyong campaign and on election day. Without you, the campaign would not have been so successful.

I would also like to thank the 7,457 people in Kooyong who voted Green.

Jenny Henty at Camberwell High school booth

I offer my congratulations to Petro Georgiou for his win again for the seat of Kooyong. I think Petro's strong stand on upholding the rule of law, human rights and fair treatment of asylum seekers and on the environment have stood him in good stead. In doing so I think Petro has demonstrated the only possible successful direction for the Liberal party.

Petro ran an honest and fair campaign in Kooyong, unlike many other electorates where the Liberals used negative fear tactics and distorted the truth. Petro was rewarded with virtually no swing against him, compared to an average national swing against the Coalition of -4.5%.

Petro Georgiou at Gennozanno College booth

I would also like to congratulate Kevin Rudd and the Labor party for winning the election and running a good campaign. I look forward to some real action on climate change in the very near future, starting with the next round of United Nations international negotiations in Bali in December.

Here are the results as of midday Sunday 25 November.

Kooyong:

• HARVEY, Ken (Labor) 19,248 votes 30.94% +1.93 swing
• GEORGIOU, Petro (Liberal) 33,987 votes 54.63% -0.03 swing
• CAMPBELL, Peter (Greens) 7,188 votes 11.55% -0.99 swing

On these figures, the Greens primary vote dipped by about 1% while Labor's rose by about 2%. It seems that many people may have voted 1 Labor this time because they wanted a change of government, without understanding that they could also achieve this by voting 1 Green 2 Labor. Please note that this is not the final count so these figures may change a little.

Labor candidate Ken Harvey at Camberwell High School booth

National results in the House of Representatives:

• Labor(two party preferred): +6.15% swing (a record win)
  
• Liberals primary votes: 35.96% -4.51 swing
  
• Greens primary votes: 7.64% +0.45 swing
• Nationals primary votes: 5.38% -0.51 swing

The two party preferred voting system in the lower house really does favour the old parties. Even though nearly 8 out of a hundred people voted 1 Green across Australia no Greens were elected to the lower house.

Nationally, over 15 Labor seats were won on Greens preferences, including Deakin and Corangamite in Victoria, so there is a clear mandate for real action on climate change and more funding for public transport, public health and public education.

Senate results in Victoria

We are still hopeful that Richard Di Natale will be elected as the first Greens Senator for Victoria. However, even though Richard received a record 10.1% of the primary vote in Victoria, this is still short of a quota (14.3%). However analysis of preference flows indicates it will be difficult for Richard to be elected, although he is still in with a chance, even though 1 out of 10 people in Victoria voted for him in the senate. It most likely take 2 weeks before the final result is known.

Overall senate results and the balance of power

The Greens achieved two more records in the Senate:

• Senator Bob Brown received 17.7% of the senate vote in Tasmania, a swing of 4.45% and has therefore exceeded a quota on primary votes and is re-elected. Congratulations Bob!
• Kerrie Tucker received 22% of the senate vote in the ACT, a swing of 5.5%. However, a quota of 33.3% is required in the territories (which only have two senators). Kerrie is still in with a chance of securing a senate seat.
  

Other Greens results in the senate are:

• Scott Ludlum is likely to be elected to the senate in WA
• Sarah Hanson-Young is likely to be elected to the senate in South Australia.
• Unfortunately, Senator Kerry Nettle has lost her bid to get relected to the senate in NSW.

On these results, the final outcome would be a total of 37 Coalition senators and 32 Labor senators, with the balance consisting of five Greens, one Family First and one Nick Xenophon (indepedent). If this eventuates, the Greens will thus not hold the balance of power in their own right. The Coalition will be able to stitch together a blocking majority with either Fielding or Xenophon or an absolute majority with them both.

Let us hope that both Richard Di Natale and Kerrie Tucker are elected to ensure the Greens have the balance of power in the senate.

What about climate change?

Prophetic Kev 4PM signing writing in the Hawthorn sky

Alistair McCaskill (Greens candidate for the neighbouring electorate of Chisholm) has provided the following excellent summation of the challenges for getting climate change and other green issues onto the political agenda.

This was clearly Labor's election, and the result is largely a reflection of the electorate's focus on the major parties combined with a mood for change. It's easy to think of additional things we could have done (locally), but it's clear they would have had little, if any effect on the final result. In the seat of Melbourne, with a budget many times larger than ours, a much larger support base, and Adam Bandt as a very capable candidate, the swing to the Greens was only 3.6%. This is a good indication of just how hard it is to change minds.

Even with the efforts of groups such as The Big Switch, GetUp, The Climate Institute, Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and numerous local climate action groups, I don't think climate change was the influential issue that many people suggested (and I hoped) it would be.

Links

• The Day After (Poll Bludger)
• First preferences by party (AEC)
  
• Marginals collapse like sandcastles , Tim Colebatch, The Age
• Paul Keating relieved John Howard era is over , Paul Keating, Herald Sun
• Petro bucks the trend James Dowling, Progress Leader
  
  
  

IPCC report indicates urgent action on climate change

With a 37 degree day in Melbourne in November and the severe ongoing drought, the scientific predictions of the latest United Nations IPCC report such as intensified water security problems in southern and eastern Australia are well validated.

Projected surface temperature changes for the late 21st century (2090-2099) Source: IPCC Report 4

Finance Minister Nick Minchin stated (ABC radio AM 19/11) that Kevin Rudd "has recently become an economic conservative after a decade of being an economic vandal". Unfortunately, the Howard government has only recently become a "climate change realist" after 11 years of climate change vandalism.

Nick Minchin stated in March this year that he was still skeptical about human activity causing climate change. Mark Vaile said in October (ABC radio PM 29/10) that "there is conflicting scientific evidence on it".

The Howard government has been economic vandals by shutting Australia out of the booming world market for genuine renewable energy technology. Instead they have diverted around $500m more of our money towards subsidising risky research and development for the coal industry, which should be funding these activities on its own.

The latest IPCC report clearly states that the world is now facing a looming "abrupt or irreversible climate catastrophe that will spare no country", but it also says that many available measures combined can avoid the worst catastrophes at an estimated cost of less than 0.12% of the global economy annually until 2050.

These measures include transitioning away from coal to renewable energy and gas-fired power stations, developing hybrid cars, using more efficient electrical appliances and protecting our forests to store more carbon.

The Howard government is still basically stuck in denial about climate change while Labor is committing to little immediate action on reducing our carbon emissions. It seems that our political system is failing to address the urgency of the situation.

Voting for the Greens' strong emission reduction and energy efficiency targets is a good option, but we also need to consider how we can get climate change out of the political arena so that it can properly addressed with a bipartisan approach properly informed by science.

Links

• Environment goes from bad to worse, Marian Wilkinson and Stephanie Peatling, November 19, 2007
• Minchin denies climate change man-made , Wendy Frew Environment Reporter, March 15, 2007
• Denial industry in full cry, John Quiggin, 16 Aug 2007
• Cabinet divided over climate change: Coalition MP, Karen Barlow, ABC radio PM - Monday, 29 October , 2007 18:14:00
• Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
• IPCC Synthesis Report: Greens respond with comprehensive climate action plan (PDF), The Greens, 19 November 2007
• A signal leaders 'cannot afford to ignore', The Age, Federal Election 2007 News, November 19, 2007
• What turned the Liberal party off climate change action? , Guy Pearse, Friday, 16 November 2007
  

Greens win mock election at Canterbury Girls Secondary College

Canterbury Girls Secondary College holds a "mock election" event during the campaign of every federal election. This is an excellent opportunity for the student to hear from political candidates from a variety of parties, ask them questions, then vote on ballots similar to those used for the House of Representatives (lower house) in the upcoming federal election.



The ballots (votes) are then counted from the "voting booth" and preferences distributed. This provides hands on experience for how our prefential voting system works.

This year, I spoke as the Greens candidate for Kooyong. My "opponents" were the Petro Georgiou (MP for Kooyong), Senator Lyn Allison (Leader of the Democrats) and Barbara Norman (Labor candidate for Higgins).


A wide range of topics were covered and as usual many good questions were asked.

I was fortunate enough the win the majority of primary votes, and be declared the "winner" after preferences were distributed. Here is the primary vote percentages:

Lyn Allison	16.4
Petro Georgiou	11.3
Peter Campbell	46.8
Barbara Norman	22.4
Informal	3.1
Total	100

While this does not set a precedent for the outcome for Kooyong in the upcoming federal election, it was nonetheless pleasing to see and hear so many year 9 students with a keen interest in taking real action on climate change and many other Greens policies I spoke about.

ABC TV Difference of Opinion on climate change

I was in the studio audience of the ABC Difference of Opinion TV program on climate change on Thursday 8 November.

I was lucky enough to be able to make the statement that Australia really should ratify the Kyoto protocol and participate in good faith with international efforts to tackle climate change, then ask Guy Pearce whether we should have shorter term emission reduction targets for 2020. Guy's emphatic answer was "yes, these are essential" You can read the transcript and watch the program on the Internet here

AUDIENCE MEMBER (me): On the issue of Australia's leadership position, I have a question for Guy. If Malcolm Turnbull can lead the world on light globes by saying, let's move to the compact fluorescent light globes and the rest of the world follows California and Europe, surely we can do the same thing, by developing our clean energy and getting it 25% renewable target. And short-term energy targets in place.

GUY PEARSE: I couldn't agree more. APPLAUSE I think what we've seen is a very deliberate attempt to steer clear of the fact that really counts, and that is, that Australia' emissions are on track to rise 70% by mid century. That's the trajectory we're currently on. But, instead we're snowed with a series of press releases about how we're banning the bulb, we need 800 steps of that scale in order to cut our emissions by 60% by mid century. We hear all about our $3.5 billion climate change budget. But, you know, on day one of this election campaign, John Howard gave away 10 times as much in one tax cut, the sixth tax cut in a row. APPLAUSE What really matters is whether we're pursuing those deep cuts in emissions. Right now we're headed in exactly the opposition direction.

Links

• Should Australia ratify the Kyoto protocol and push for binding global emissions?

We need real action on climate change

It is disappointing that both Labor and Liberal party election policies on climate change announced so far do not provide any immediate action to reduce our carbon emissions.

The scientific evidence on climate change clearly indicates that immediate action is required, yet the Howard government has only committed to an emission trading scheme in 2012 after a decade of denial. No details of their proposed scheme are available yet. There is considerable risk that it may not result in any emission reductions.

The Howard Government is also promoting nuclear power as part of their solution, which will be too expensive, too late, produce toxic waste and not be renewable.

On the other hand, Labor has committed to 2050 emission reduction targets, but not too any shorter term 2020 targets that are essential for achieving the longer term ones. However, Labor’s 20% renewable energy target by 2020 is a step in the right direction.

Neither the Labor or Liberal party will commit to the essential policy goal of limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees, yet science tells us even this temperature rise will have widespread deleterious effects on global ecosystems.

I encourage the many people in our community concerned about climate change to attend the Walk Against Warming rally on Sunday 7/11 to show their support for immediate bipartisan action to address climate change.

Setting energy efficiency targets and increasing our utilisation of renewable energy is achievable immediately, but we need the political will to do so.

Vote 1 Green for real action on climate change, rather than a load of hot air

This video succinctly explains why we really must take immediate action.




Peter Campbell
Greens candidate for Kooyong

Walk against Warming on 11 November 2007

John Howard's and Kevin Rudd's policies on climate change both fall well short of what is required to take real action on climate change.

Howard has not committed to any targets, while Rudd says Labor will ratify the Kyoto Protocol and set emission reduction targets for 2050.

We don't need more reports, we need short term targets for 2010, 2015 and 2020. In particular, we need to set a firm target of 30% emissions reductions by 2020.

You have the opportunity to attend Australia's biggest day of community action on climate change.

Date: Sunday, November 11, 2007
Time: 1:00pm to 3:00pm
Location: State Library, Swanton Street, Melbourne

I encourage you to "walk against warming" to highlight the need for action on climate change. I will be there.

See http://www.walkagainstwarming.org for walk locations in your capital city.

This advertisement from Getup summarises the Howard Government's position well. Demand real action on climate change: I can do that!

Kooyong climate change forum

I spoke at the Kooyong climate change forum on the evening of Monday 3 September 2007.


It was encouraging to see about 350 people turn up to hear the candidates for Kooyong talk about climate change. Greens policies on climate change are fairly close to the Democrats (David Collyer) in that we both specify short term emission reduction targets. However, Labor (Ken Harvey) is still refusing to specify any targets earlier than 2050, with the Liberals (Petro Georgiou) are still refusing to set any targets at all.

Interestingly, all candidates set their "temperature arrow" to 2 degrees, even though both Labor and Liberal voted against the Greens motion for this in the Senate in April, and John Howard has stated that "Australia can adapt to climate change of up to 5 degrees", a statement which is bordering on lunacy.


It really is a case of separating what politicians say from how they or their party votes in parliament. There is often a world of difference. So now we can hold John Howard to the two degrees rise maximum, courtesty of Petro Georgiou. But maybe this is just another "non-core promise".

Below are my presentation slides. Click on any to enlarge them.

Kooyong electorate climate change candidate forum

When: Monday 3rd September 2007

Where: Hawthorn Town Hall, Burwood Road/Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn

Time: 7:30pm - Mon Sep 3 9:30pm

A coalition of climate change action groups across Kooyong is convening this forum to provide an opportunity to hear our House of Representatives candidates speak about what they would do to address climate change.

They are Petro Georgiou (Liberal), Ken Harvey (ALP), Peter Campbell (Greens) and possibly a Family First candidate.

The question convenor will be Michael Gorton, whose background includes being a founder of Greening Australia, a prime mover in United Nations Youth General Assemblies, an Equal Opportunities Commissioner, and chair of the Victorian Aboriginal Reconciliation Commission.

In addition, a speaker from Environment Victoria who will outline the major science findings and the immediate actions we can take. Questions will be taken from the floor. On display in the hall will be some local primary schools posters done by their children who have painted how they see reduction in greenhouse gas production, as well as some stalls with information about local climate change groups.

The Mayor of Boroondara will open this evening focused on assisting our community and our representatives to work together in playing a part to help to save our planet.

Further information/ Press interviews: enquiries@lighterfootprints.org

Carolyn Ingvarson 9836 0925

Greens for real action on climate change - videos

There has been a lot of political activity on YouTube lately in the lead up to the election. Here are a few Greens videos I find interesting and refreshing:

Rescue the Climate - Vote Green *(Senators Christine Milne and Bob Brown)

Howard and Rudd in bed with the coal industry

The Chaser's 'Backflips of the Greens'

Vote Green for real action on climate change

I have compared Labor and Liberal policies on climate change, as at July 2007, and drawn the conclusion that there is actually little difference between them. Both Labor and Liberal policies do not translate into meaningful or real action on climate change.

This diagram illustrates the widespread concerns with climate change and why we need to take immediate action to address it:


Climate change affects us all. A comprehensive and widespread strategy is required to tackle it.

Comparing the Greens policies on climate change to the Liberal (John Howard) and Labor (Kevin Rudd) policies reveals how shallow those of the major parties are, as illustrated in the following table:



This leaflet is being distributed across the Kooyong electorate and elsewhere in Australia. Please email me if you are keen to help us with this.

Forests can slow climate change

This letter was published in The Age and The Heraldsun on July 25, 2007

Once again we are faced with the unedifying spectacle of Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull both playing political football with Australia's forests.

Kevin Rudd has just fully endorsed John Howard's forest policy which supports the destruction of remnant majestic old growth forests in both Tasmania and South East Australia. He has done this to curry favour with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union in the run up to the federal election.

Deforestation and land clearing accounts for around 10 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, yet Kevin Rudd is doing nothing to stop this, despite the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which identifies protection of forests as a key global strategy for combating climate change.

Malcolm Turnbull says he recognises the importance of forests as carbon stores, yet he also supports the ongoing destruction of Australia's forests and the resulting export of 4 million tonnes of woodchips from Tasmania and 1 million tonnes from Victoria each year. The Howard government is allocating $200 million to protect forests in South East Asia, but is unwilling to protect Australian forests that store up to 1200 tonnes of carbon per hectare.

Carbon dioxide emissions from logging in Victoria in 2004-2005 were almost 10 million tonnes which is equivalent to emissions resulting from an additional 2.4 million cars onto Victoria’s roads each year.

The solution is remarkably simple. We need to protect all remaining old growth forests to preserve both their intrinsic value and the carbon they store.

Unfortunately, Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull can only see woodchips rather than our trees.

View some Tasmanian forests and hear why local people want them protected.

MEDIA RELEASE: Canadian Green leader says Australian energy and building standards must be improved

July 17, 2007

Ontario Green Party leader Frank de Jong visited a sustainable house in Surrey Hills owned by Peter Campbell, Greens candidate for the federal seat of Kooyong, on Tuesday July 17 to raise awareness about domestic energy standards.

He said Mr Campbell's house, which produces three-quarters of its power requirements, was a fantastic example of how home owners can reduce their emissions, and highlighted that standards in Australia need to be lifted, as they have been in Canada.

“Improved energy and housing standards have been successfully introduced in Canada to reduce energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr De Jong said.

“We have recently improved our EnerGuide standards for heating and cooling, water heating, gas and electric appliances, lighting and windows.

“Consumers in Canada also use the Energy Star symbol and ratings to buy energy-efficient TVs, VCRs, DVDs, audio equipment and other audio visual products,” Mr De Jong added.

“For the future, we need to set a target of net-zero energy construction as the standard for all renovations and new buildings. This means that buildings could be energy neutral in the long term by a combination of passive solar design, solar panels and hot water systems, and energy efficient appliances such as we see in this Surrey Hills house.”

Mr Campbell stated, “Our Surrey Hills house produces 75 per cent of the power we consume and we are net producers of clean green power over summer.


“If all new homes built in Australia were this efficient and if we implement widespread energy efficiency measures to reduce demand for power, we could avoid building new coal-fired power stations like the one on the drawing board for the Latrobe Valley, which would increase greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr Campbell said.

“While the improvements introduced in 2005 to the five-star energy efficiency requirement for housing in Victoria are a step in the right direction, they clearly don’t go far enough.

“Average energy-related emissions for new dwellings are almost six per cent higher than those of existing dwellings, mainly due to people buying inefficient appliances and lighting, so clearly the five-star building standards need to be further improved” Mr Campbell continued.

“Some large-screen plasma TVs consume more electricity than a fridge while in use, and consumers have no easy way of knowing this when they buy them.

“If we are serious about addressing climate change, we need to consider six-star building standards that include assessment of solar building design and efficiency of appliances, similar to the standards in place in Canada, and we urgently need to expand the energy star rating to cover all electrical goods rather than just whitegoods,” Mr Campbell added.

Frank de Jong is visiting Australia as a guest of Earthsharing Australia.

MEDIA CONTACT: Peter Campbell mobile 0409 417 504 kooyong@greens.org.au

Links

• Frank de Jong, Green Party of Ontario leader
• EnerGuide standards
• Overview of Australian Regulatory Requirements - Labelling and MEPS
• Options to reduce greenhouse emissions from new homes in Victoria through the building approval process. Report to DSE by George Wilkenfeld & Associates (2007)
  5_star energy report May 07 (PDF - 531 Kb)
• Surrey Hills house
  
  
  
  

LETTER: Howard luke-warm

Below is a letter from Phillip Walker, St Kilda East, that was published in The Age on Sunday July 8, 2007. I think he sums up John Howard's complete lack of action on addressing climate change, and his political maneouvering on the topic. I think is completely unacceptable for the Australian Government to avoid setting targets for reducing carbon emissions for 2010, 2020 and 2050 despite clear scientific evidence that the future of our planet is now at stake.

And Labor's avoidance of setting 2020 targets makes them not much different from John Howard.

Letter text follows:

The report in The Sunday Age (1/7), "PM warms to his task", highlights the Liberal approach, which is a diversion that will not reduce Australia's carbon emissions to the levels required to stop catastrophic global warming.

Dealing with climate change is an international issue and that requires working through international institutions. As Michael Raupach noted (The Age, 25/6), "the biggest value of the (1997 Kyoto) protocol was its effort to build social capital".

Howard's APEC initiative undermines international efforts and of the 16 Pacific island countries, only PNG is a member. This means the Pacific countries that are in the forefront of coping with the negative consequences of climate change are excluded from the negotiation process.

It appears unlikely that Australia will meet the Kyoto commitments, which even permitted us to increase greenhouse emissions by 8 per cent on 1990 levels. As it is, Australia's per capita emissions are 4.5 times the global average, second only to the US.

The criticism of Labor for failing to set a mid-term (2020-30) reduction target is accurate. What is not mentioned is that the Liberals have neither a medium nor a long-term target for greenhouse emissions reduction.

Similarly, a national emission trading scheme needs to have stringent limits and be applicable to all emitters. Howard has put the start date off for five years, has not yet set limits, and will not apply it to all industrial emitters, which is self-defeating.

Scientific consensus is that we have 10-15 years to get it right on climate change and that we need to limit global warming to 20 degrees Celsius, a target both Liberal and Labor are silent on.

What Australia does need is leadership that provides a clear strategy for steady reduction in greenhouse emissions, and the political will to apply it. That's why I'll be voting for the Greens.

Source

Liberal and Labor, make a call: how much heat can you stand

Here is a good article by Richard Di Natale and Adam Bandt, who are both candidates for the Greens in Victoria in the upcoming 2007 Federal election.

I call on Petro Georgiou, the Liberal member for Kooyong, to set a short term target for carbon emission reductions of 20% by 2020.

The letter was published here in The Age on June 11, 2007. Text follows

What risk of a plane crashing do you accept before buying a ticket? If it was 85 per cent likely, you'd never fly; 10 per cent, or even 1 per cent, would be too much.

Knowing that a plane might go down isn't enough; we want to know the degree of risk. So it's odd that we are prepared to make decisions about the planet's future without knowing the risk or likelihood of catastrophic consequences if action is taken, or not taken.

It can be hard to cut through the fog of figures about global warming targets: the difference, for example, between a 60 or an 80 per cent cut in emissions, by 2020 or by 2050, is difficult to crystallise.

This confusion is being exploited by both major parties and manufactured debates are played out relentlessly. Labor presents itself as tough on climate change while the Coalition says it puts economics above abstract goals.

But more than anything else, there is one number that really counts. It is the first step on the ladder of climate-change policy — and it is the one to which neither Labor nor the Coalition is willing to give an answer.

Given the science and likely impacts, how hot are we willing to let the planet get? Two degrees, three degrees, four degrees hotter?

And what risk will we accept of exceeding this target?

Temperatures have, already, risen 0.74 degrees above pre-industrial levels and, even if human activity added no more to current greenhouse gas levels, the planet will continue to warm about 1.4 degrees due to lags in the climate system.

The CSIRO last year predicted that, if we exceed a two-degree rise, 97 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef will be bleached annually and an 80 per cent loss of Kakadu's freshwater wetlands is likely. At just under three degrees, there's a 99 per cent risk of Greenland irreversibly melting, with an eventual global sea level rise of five to seven metres.

In the two to three-degree range, we can conservatively pencil in about 20 per cent of the planet's species becoming extinct and a one in five chance of the oceanic currents that regulate the planet's temperature simply shutting down.

A three-degree rise is simply way outside human experience. The last time it was that hot, in the Pliocene, 3 million years ago, beech trees grew in the Transantarctic mountains and seas were 25 metres higher.

If we can limit warming to less than two degrees, knowing about 1.4 degrees is already locked in, the consequences will still be severe, but the risk of triggering runaway climate-change events (where we lose the capacity to control the consequences) lessens significantly.

This is why German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the British Conservative party — both from the right of European politics — have recently reaffirmed the importance of a two-degree limit. The Howard Government, by contrast, isn't even in the realm of reason on this question, with the Prime Minister saying a rise of four to six degrees might make life "uncomfortable" for some, but that it was difficult to predict with any certainty.

His comment shows fundamental ignorance. The planet as we know it will not survive past a five or six-degree rise: it is predicted that, at four degrees, hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon locked up in Arctic permafrost — particularly in Siberia — will enter the melt zone, releasing the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide in immense quantities.

Labor might know where the ballpark is, but they haven't bought an entry ticket yet. The ALP's Peter Garrett set out his party's policy on this page recently (The Age, 5/6), relying on a CSIRO submission to the Prime Minister's emissions taskforce that says a 60 to 90 per cent cut to industrialised countries' emissions is needed to stabilise climate change.

But Australia, as one of the worst emitters among the industrialised countries, requires a cut at the higher end of this range.

The CSIRO research and other research makes it clear that the "temperature stabilisation" associated with a 60 per cent cut is considered by many as too risky, giving us a massive 80 to 85 per cent chance of overshooting a two-degree target. Labor's policy for Australia of a 60 per cent cut by 2050 is therefore more about hope than science.

There is literally a world of difference between a two and three-degree rise in the impacts of climate change on both humans and the environment.

Caught between the science and the politics, Labor's Peter Garrett talks vaguely in the two to three-degree range, never being specific, never committing Labor to putting even one foot on the first rung of the climate change policy ladder — an unambiguous target.

And Labor does not have a short-term target — in many ways much more important than targets five decades away.

The Greens policy is to achieve emissions cuts of 30 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. This would give us an 80 per cent chance of keeping the temperature rise below two degrees. To maximise the chance of staying below two degrees, we must make big cuts early. For John Howard, a climate-change sceptic, this is more about smoothing over a political problem than real action. But Labor, too, falls short of the mark — they do not even set a temperature target.

Professor Tim Flannery, the Australian of the Year environmentalist, said recently his greatest wish was that political parties would state their "temperature limits" as to how hot the planet should get. The Greens recently moved a motion in the Senate to have a two-degree limit endorsed as Australia's target. The ALP joined with the Coalition to defeat the motion.

The challenge to the major parties is: just how hot are you prepared to let the planet get?

MEDIA RELEASE: Climate change, public transport and cycling

Date: 27 May 2007

Peter Campbell has been preselected by the Greens to run against Petro Georgiou again for the seat of Kooyong. Campbell has previously stood in Kooyong in both the 2001 and 2004 Federal elections with the Green vote rising dramatically on both occasions.

“I am proud to run again for the Greens in Kooyong at a time that is vitally important for our future. I make a commitment to Kooyong residents that, if elected, I will vote in parliament for real and effective targets for dealing with climate change” Mr Campbell said.

“The science and economic impacts of climate change are now agreed, what we need now is urgent and effective measures to bring down our carbon emissions.” said Mr Campbell.

“Many people in the community are seriously concerned about climate change, the drought and living sustainably. I think these will be among the key issues for the upcoming election this year.” said Mr Campbell.

“It is most unfortunate that the Howard Government has refused to set targets for reducing carbon emissions, has only recently acknowledged climate change is real and is only supporting the coal industry rather than renewable energy.” Mr Campbell said.

“Labor's 2050 carbon emission targets are not much better. We need to introduce a target of reducing Australia’s greenhouse emissions to 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80% below by 2050.” said Mr Campbell.

Kooyong residents are also concerned about our inadequate public tranport with trains overcrowded and late and trams travelling at 15km due to our roads being choked by cars. I will work to ensure Federal funds are provided for improving our public transport. Giving people the option of reducing their car trips is also climate friendly.” Mr Campbell said.

“Cycling more often is also a great way we can reduce carbon emissions and get healthy, but we have a chronic shortage of funds for cycle trails and routes in Kooyong and across the country. I will address this issue as a priority” Mr Campbell said.

For more information and comment please contact Peter Campbell 0409 417 504

-ends-

Authorised by Peter Campbell, 377 Little Bourke St Melbourne 3000
Phone: 0419 417 504 email: kooyong@greens.org.au
www.greens.org.au