Queensland Uni's new climate change study institute
Updated
The Director of Australia's newest climate change research institute wants to involve both the physical and social science disciplines in finding a way to deal with climate change. This evening (Wednesday) in Brisbane, the University of Queensland officially opened launched its "Global Change Institute". Its purpose is to help find a way to deal with changing climates, and the threat, it places on both established and developing countries in the region, and what is happening in the Pacific is of special interest. To do this it wants to utilise all parts of the University of Queensland, from its business and social science schools, to its expertise in science.
Presenter: Pacific Correspondent Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Director of the new Global Change Institute at Queensland University, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
- Listen:
- Windows Media
HOEGH-GULDBERG: Many of these problems can't be looked at in isolation from the rest of the world, we can't look at the issue of population without considering our regional context. We've got hundreds of millions of people to the north of us. Those regional neighbourhood issues are very much part of the population issue if you like for Australia. Similarly, with an issue like climate change, what Australia does has to be in context of a global issue and so on. Technological advances, we need our next generation of bright sparks to be competitive in an environment where perhaps China and India will be driving the agenda, that's a global issue. We cannot do it in isolation.
COONEY: Give me some ideas if you would not mind of big issues that are happening around the region? Some of those big issues that you see are going to be driving the climate change issue and the sort of work that you guys are going to be doing?
HOEGH-GULDBERG: Well, a really big one is sea level rise. If you look at the best estimates coming from the scientific consensus, we're looking at a metre at least of sea level rise around the planet on average by the end of the century. Now, in our context, that challenges infrastructure like airports and neighbourhoods and so on. There is an estimate of about 220,000 residential homes, for example, which are likely to be inundated if that reality comes to pass.
At a regional level, if we look at the Pacific Islands or Indonesia, there are literally tens-of-millions of people who are vulnerable to sea level rise, because they live in coastal areas, on low lying atolls or low lying coasts and so actually trying to address this problem ahead of when it becomes an issue is the smart way to go around this, about this.
If we don't address these problems until they start to impact, then we will be paying a much heavier price. And so this is really about smart thinking, it's about multi-disciplinary approaches to the problem. Sea level rise, for example, cannot just be looked at by oceanographers. The whole issue comes down to issues of coastal geography, biology, economics, infrastructure, policy, and so on. And unless you approach it in those multi-disciplinary groups, then your chance of actually having a good outcome, a solution, are very small.
COONEY: In some ways, we are already playing catch up. The Catarat Islands look like disappearing and the population from them are going to be moving on to Bougainville. We hear of incredible king tides on places like Tuvalu and Kiribatis and these are low lying coral atolls, they are already feeling the affect.
HOEGH-GULDBERG: What you're saying is these problems are here and now. I mean we are already seeing them. It is not just about preparing for the future. We've actually got some problems that are facing us right now. I mean we've got coastal erosion. I mean what we are learning about sea level rise is that it does not take much to have big impacts on coastlines and so on. Atolls like Kiribatis and Tuvalu are already facing problems. If you get a spring high tide and if you get a storm surge, you have got large amounts of towns on those islands underwater.
Now solving those problems is a complex set of perimeters. It will take international policy being crafted in a way which is fair. It will take really on the supply side of the problem, if you like, it will take some resolve that it does not get any worse. I mean it is going to get worse for awhile, because even if we stopped emissions today, we would still see a significant rise in the seas. But, if you like, we have got to address all of those parts of the problem if we are going to get the best outcome, because this is peoples lives and businesses and what is happening in Tuvalu and Kiribati today will happen in Australia in the next 50 years if we do not get cracking on some clever solutions.
COONEY: You mentioned a cross discipline approach and you made the example of oceanographers. What other disciplines would you like to see involved which would not automatically come to mind when you start thinking of this as an issue?
HOEGH-GULDBERG: Oh look, there is a full range. I mean any professional field, if you like. There are people that are engaged with conversations with other disciplines. What we need to do is ramp up that effort.
My colleagues, for example, in Maritime Law at the University of Queensland are already engaged in some innovative research groups, similar with some of our world class ecologists, like Hugh Possingham. We have already got conversations going on with policy development going on with geographers and so on. It is really about I think ramping this up and getting us to think. Our universities represent a huge opportunity. They are an opportunity for having fermentation of ideas and then the implementation and testing of those ideas and we need to now harness that. And if you take an institution like UQ, it's budget is over a Billion dollars each year. It's got thousands of really top class researchers and so I think it is about harnessing that better so that it delivers evidence-based research that's evidence-based solutions for its policy development.
COONEY: Do you have any concerns about the state of the climate change debate? There are plenty out there who doubt it and will voice their doubts about it for a variety of reasons and one I suppose I am curious where you come down on that and what do you say to those people who do throw doubts at the climate change science?
HOEGH-GULDBERG: Well, I think at the moment, it is an orchestrated campaign of individuals who are not experts in the problem and what we're seeing is certain media outlets giving air play I think under the guise of hearing the other side. Well, the other side of this debate is not whether or not its occurring. The best scientific academies, the IPCC have all concluded that we have aspergenic climate proceeding, it is caused by humans and we need to deal with it. So my response to this is to not to sling mud, but to just to sling hard evidence. I mean this is about science. It is not about an opinion or a gut feeling or religion or a belief and I think until there is significant contesting of the core facts in peer reviewed scientific journals, this movement at the moment is likely to fail, because at the end of the day, the Australian public does not want to just have a hunch. It needs to have hard facts about the issue and until we do that, until we listen to that and we get on with the solutions, it will just be an endless debate.
