Julia Gillard PM has been in discussion with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico in the run up to the Cancun Climate Summit which is rumoured to have little real ambition. The discussions are expected to primarily concern the progress of less developed countries and deforestation.
Australia has always been stand-offish when it comes to tackling climate change and the government has historically found it hard to convince the general public of the importance of the issue however Gillard is determined to make climate change a key issue in Australian politics.
”We can’t just sit still,” she said. ”We need to work our way through the adaptation our economy needs to be a lower-pollution economy.”
The majority of Australia’s population dense areas are coastal meaning that any rise in sea levels will affect the country in the short term as well as the long term, potentially displacing millions of people and an increase in sea acidity would likely destroy the Great Barrier Reef.
Australia has a wealth of natural resources such as an abundance of sunlight, strong coastal currents and a tropical climate which lends itself to the use of ground source heat pumps. Investment has begun but Australia still has a long way to go, Gillard’s proposed carbon tax will go a long way to kicking the industry into action.
Also in talks were American President, Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, despite Japan not being a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Participating nations still have a long way to go to achieve a greener economy however the process has not been easy thus far with the diversion of international budgets toward the ongoing conflict in the middle-east. If Australia invests wisely it can easily surpass international expectations, what the PM has to remember is that by not taking action now the cost will be much higher in the future.
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