CLIMATE change is the most critical issue facing Australia. The message from 97 per cent of the world's climate scientists is clear.
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Urgent action is necessary to limit extreme global temperature increases and to prevent climate change from becoming self sustaining.
It is certain now that the two degrees temperature increase long feared by scientists will be exceeded.
So, disasters of some magnitude are already locked into Australia's future.
Should global temperature increases exceed four or five degrees, as predicted by many scientists, including those of the CSIRO, we face unimaginable catastrophe.
Australia has a responsibility to act.
There has been a lot of earnest dialogue from well-meaning people about the necessity for emissions reduction and the relative merits of carbon taxes, market-based schemes and now the Abbott Direct Action Plan.
What all of these plans have in common is their piteously feeble targets.
Future emissions from Clive Palmer's China First export project alone will obliterate gains from any of the presently foreseeable domestic emission reductions plans.
China First will produce 40 million tonnes of thermal coal per year, equivalent to 180 million tonnes of CO2 per year, over a period of 30 years. This is more than 40 per cent of Australia's annual domestic emissions.
It is more than eight times the amount of CO2 that Tony Abbott's Direct Action Plan will save with its 5 per cent reduction target and more than double that of the ambitious 25 per cent reductions target promised should there be sufficient support from other nations.
Clive, though, is only part of the problem. In 2012, Australia's total coal exports were 300 million tonnes. Clive's extra 40 million tonnes will take us to 340 million tonnes, equivalent to 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2.
Exported emissions are not included in domestic CO2 accounting, but since we dig the coal out of the ground and get paid for it, it's hard to deny that its emissions are our responsibility.
Domestic CO2 emissions of 400 million tonnes bring Australia's total annual emissions to 1.6 billion tonnes.
Without including emissions from the various forms of exported liquefied petroleum gas, this places Australia in number six position on the list of global polluters, between Russia at 1.7 billion tonnes and Japan at 1.2 billion tonnes.
In view of Australia's enormous contribution to the world's climate change death spiral, it is blindingly obvious that achieving minor reductions in domestic emissions is pointless while our much more massive exported emissions are accelerating.
Labor pays lip service to a belief in climate change science, but like the Coalition sees a bright future for coal.
If our political leaders really want to forge a strong future for Australians, they must ensure that our fossil fuels with their safely sequestered CO2 stay safely in the ground.