I’ve been thinking a lot about kids and climate change lately. I’m not just wondering, as I often do, what they’ll think of our response to the crisis and what they’ll do when they are adults. I’ve actually been trying to work out how to explain climate change to them without scaring their little socks off.
I had a cursory glance through the Queensland and New South Wales State budgets yesterday to see if there was anything interesting going on in terms of climate change. There wasn’t.
Failure to act on climate change claimed the political scalp of Kevin Rudd and John Howard before him. How Julia Gillard responds to the issue will play a crucial role in the success of her leadership.
When Kevin Rudd won the 2007 election in a landslide, it was heralded as the world’s first climate change election. Three years later, having squandered their mandate, the ALP went to Saturday’s election having tried to bury the issue.
The seconds and minutes ticked by as the nation waited to know the outcome of the 2010 federal election. 2pm came and went, Bob Katter briefly appeared to let the Australian people know he would be going with the Coalition, and still we all waited for the two Independents to arrive and cast their deciding votes.
Today I gave Greenpeace’s Golden Chainsaw award to the representative of the Government of PNG at talks on REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestaion and Degradation). Her name is Federica Bietta and she is also representing PNG as co-chair on special REDD Partnership negotiations.