Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The National Conference of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in Canberra today heard Senator Scott Ludlam, spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, Australian Greens, outline the possibilities of global inaction on climate change.

Senator Ludlam raised the scenario of people taking to “armed lifeboats” if the earth’s temperature rose by more than 2 degrees.

He said there was nothing that the defence, security, trade or diplomatic communities could do to adapt to an increase in global temperatures of 4 degrees.

Senator Ludlam said the planet would become rapidly ungovernable under that scenario, and there did not seem to be the institutional architecture to manage such a high increase.

“Do you actually believe that the institutional architecture we have for multilateralism post 1945 or have the tools we need to prevent ourselves disappearing into the armed lifeboats?” he asked the audience of over 350 diplomats, academics and business people at the Conference.

“My instinct is that it actually can’t be done”.

Senator Ludlam said that Australia should be clear about who it allied itself with and the consensus it wanted to build in preparations for the Climate Change Conference in Paris in November.

He said delegates should not return to their countries without a plan for the world to heat up by less than 2 degrees.

He said that the rapidly changing climate was already pushing fragile or failing states over the edge, and one of the consequences was the movement of people, with 60 million people displaced by increased temperatures.

Contact Details

Niree Creed, Director of Communications AIIA
0418625595

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