What hope for biodiversity in the face of anthropogenic climate change in Oceania?

Abstract

OVER the past five years, climate change has not only become the main priority for environment policy, it is influencing most spheres of public policy as understanding increases of the ramifications of global warming. Despite the importance of the issue, governments have struggled to reduce their carbon addiction because of the high dependencies of economies and social systems (e.g., jobs) on this one element. Industries aggressively protect their interests and the public debate is often debased by a media who, in the interests of so called balance, often set the issue up as one of disagreement among opposing scientific factions on anthropogenic climate change. A recent extensive analysis of 1 372 climate researchers and their publications and citation data showed that 97-98% supported the tenets of anthropogenic climate change, while the 2-3% of scientists that disagreed had a scientific status well below the majority (Anderegg et al. 2010). There is no balance here. Further, international frameworks for decision-making remain fractured with considerable inertia to reduce global emissions. Uncertainty over predictions of what the future will look like has become an increasingly easy reason for not making the necessary policy responses to deal with climate change. Some argue in the rich nations of Oceania (e.g., Australia) that local emissions policy detrimentally affects carbon dependent industries and makes little difference because they emit so little of the world’s carbon. This ignores the morale responsibility for leadership among the world’s worst emitters of carbon, on a per capita level. It also ignores the critical fact that the environments in our region of Oceania are increasingly the vanguard of those affected by sea level rise and other impacts of anthropogenic climate change and no action will lead to great suffering of those who need our help the most.