Following her resignation as Environmental Commissioner, Professor Kate Auty expressed concern with the State Government’s use of the term ‘climate variability’, instead of climate change.
Professor Auty said during her time as Commissioner from 2009-2014, there had been a ‘shift’ in how her team defined climate change.
“My view is that climate variability is used to allay people’s concerns about climate change and that is not the way I think the science ought to be expressed,” she said.
“There has been a general shift sponsored by Government in my view, to climate variability as the explanation.
“And it’s not accurate – it doesn’t represent the science; it undermines what we want to have the public thinking about.”
The Environmental Commissioner writes reports such as ‘The State of the Environment Report’.
Professor Auty said when it came to the final draft of the report in 2013, she talked to the Environment Minister Ryan Smith.
“Getting to the final draft of it, that’s when I had the conversation with the Minister, who asked what he could do if he didn’t like the report,” she said.
“That’s when I said, ‘well nothing’, because it would be rigorous, it would be scientific, peer-reviewed and it would be based on the best, most up-to-date scientific material that we could find…”
Knox Environmental Society community gardens. Picture: Maddi Vantarakis
Knox Environmental Society Volunteer Chris Nicholson said climate change needs to be taken seriously by Government.
“A complete denial of climate change; anyone who is in complete denial about climate change in politics…well I’m a bit put off by that,” he said.
“I have a tendency to vote and support people who are trying to change what we’re currently doing.”
CEO of Climateworks Australia and Director of the Monash Sustainability Institute Professor David Griggs said while climate does change naturally, there is a significant difference between the terms variability and change.
“For me, the words climate variability and climate change are very, very different things,” he said.
“Climate changes naturally, on all kinds of time scales- that’s called climate variability.
“What we call climate change, is where there is a systematic change to that natural variability.”
According to Professor Griggs governments should be targeting reducing greenhouse gas emissions now.
“It’s really quite simple: put policies in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 per cent by 2020, and by 80-95 per cent by 2050,” he said.
“This is what needs to be done to limit climate change to no more than about two degrees Celsius.
“There’s no one measure, which will do that- not even a carbon tax; it has to be a whole range of measures.”
Monash Sustainability Institute Building, at Monash University in Clayton. Picture: Maddi Vantarakis.
Professor Auty said government is a significant part of the equation to put Australia back on track.
“We’re going to be left behind by the Chinese and everybody else, who are already moving to get themselves out of coal,” she said.
“We don’t want to be a laager and government is important to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Professor Auty’s last day as Environmental Commissioner will be March 31.
Maddi Vantarakis 