The State Government will spend $8.6 million over five years on climate change research programs, Premier Alan Carpenter announced today.
The State Government will spend $8.6 million over five years on climate change research programs, Premier Alan Carpenter announced today.
The full text of an announcement from the Premier's office is pasted below
The State Government has committed an extra $8.6 million over the next five years to research climate change and its link to extreme weather events across Western Australia.
Premier Alan Carpenter announced the funding boost prior to attending Australia's first National Climate Change Summit, convened by Federal Labor Leader Kevin Rudd, to be held in Canberra on Saturday.
Mr Carpenter said the funding was part of the State Government's Greenhouse and State Water strategies.
The funding would also be used to identify WA regions most affected by climate change and to provide relevant information so the State could better adapt to the impacts of climate change.
"We recently experienced first-hand the devastating impacts of extreme storms like Cyclone George and with climate change, we have to improve our planning for these events," the Premier said.
"The new funding will extend our knowledge of current and future climate patterns around the State to help us do just that.
"We will effectively be able to look into the future and map temperature and rainfall patterns to improve our knowledge of storms and extreme weather events such as cyclones, floods, droughts and heatwaves.
"The funding will also provide greater knowledge and understanding about significant future changes in climate to ensure effective planning for water supply, agriculture, nature conservation and fire management.
"This information will help community, industry and local governments to better understand the potential risks and opportunities of climate change and improve their decision-making capacity as a result."
Mr Carpenter said the State Government would allocate $4 million to support stage three of the Indian Ocean Climate Initiative, a climate research partnership between the State Government, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.
Stage three expands earlier strategic research on the South-West and will include new research on the North-West and the development of future regional climate scenarios.
A further $4.625 million has been committed to identify regions and sectors in WA most vulnerable to climate change impacts and to develop adaptation programs.
The Premier said the IOCI's climate research had already played a major role in Government decision-making.
"It was IOCI research that revealed a 15 per cent decline in winter rainfall in the State's South-West over the past 30 years," he said.
"This research recognised that lower rainfall could be an ongoing feature of the
South-West and was a key factor in our decision to build the Perth desalination plant, which now supplies 17 per cent of Perth's drinking water."
The State Government has a range of initiatives designed to address climate change.
These include:
- developing and committing to the introduction of a National Emissions Trading Scheme by 2010;
- investing in renewable energy through our commitment to purchasing 20 per cent of Government's energy requirements from renewable sources by 2010, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by about 90,000 tonnes per year;
- reducing the need for cars by almost doubling the size of the Perth rail network - through building the new southern rail line, taking 25,000 cars off our roads;
- spending more than $72million on cycling facilities and delivering more than 360km of cycling networks across the State;
- funding for wind farms in Bremer Bay, Coral Bay, Denham, Esperance, Exmouth, Hopetoun, Kalbarri and Rottnest Island;
- setting a six per cent renewable energy target for the South-West Interconnected System;
- procuring the $400million NewGen Kwinana Power Station, which provides power using gas technology and will produce half as many greenhouse gas emissions as an equivalent coal fuelled station;
- replacing the diesel bus fleet with gas powered buses, introducing 451 compressed natural gas buses by 2011; and
- implementing strict native vegetation clearing controls.