According to The Age :
A $600 million wind farm generating enough electricity to power almost 190,000 homes will be built in western Victoria.
Planning Minister Rob Hulls said yesterday the wind farm, the biggest in the southern hemisphere, would be built on 5500 hectares of farmland at Macarthur, near Port Fairy.
And while the State Government was boosting its green credentials, Prime Minister John Howard said the evidence of global warming was stronger now than before, although he did not subscribe to “alarmist theories”.
A comprehensive British report on the economic effects of climate change says that countries will need to spend 1 per cent of their annual gross domestic product to fight global warming. Doing nothing could cost them up to 20 times that amount, it warns.
The report, by Sir Nicholas Stern, says global inaction will lead this century to the submerging of the Netherlands, Bangladesh and many Pacific islands, and the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, according to shadow treasurer Wayne Swan, who was briefed by Sir Nicholas on Thursday. The report will be published on Monday.
Several of the nation’s foremost experts on the subject yesterday told The Age of their concerns about the Australia’s progress on the issue.
Retired senior CSIRO scientist Barrie Pittock said “governments of all persuasions had not done enough, both here and overseas”. “The real thing that we’ve been lacking (here) is a sense of urgency, because we do have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms this decade.”
Former CSIRO chief of atmospheric research Graeme Pearman said there had been “great expectations a decade ago” that Australia would lead the world on responding to climate change.
“The fact that the climate is changing is now becoming bleedingly obvious to everyone, and everyone’s in a sudden rush to ask what we can do. But the thing I worry about is, are we going to look back and really rue these 10 lost years of action?”
Sir Nicholas believed that a period of 10 to 15 years exists to save the global economy from severe damage but after that it would be too late, Mr Swan said.
Insurance analysts said in evidence to Sir Nicholas that they feared insurance claims caused by storms, droughts and other natural disasters could exceed the world’s GDP.
The Stern report proposes a global carbon trading scheme, increased regulation of carbon-emitting products and green taxes as part of a framework of strategies to fight climate change.
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