For a very long time people took little notice of climate change and as a result today the world faces an enormous challenge. The problem has been around ever since people began burning coal to power machines more than 200 years ago, but over the past few decades it has accelerated swiftly.
Last year, for the first time, the amount of carbon pollution humans released into the atmosphere reached 10 billion tonnes. That's more than a tonne for every person on Earth. But we Australians are particularly nasty polluters, for we emitted around 19 tonnes of carbon per person.
Clearly it is time to act and I believe that 2009 will be the year we began to tackle the problem seriously.
The signs of global action to tackle this urgent issue are already there. President Obama's economic recovery bill, which was signed into law in mid-February, will invest more than $50 billion into clean energy. Australia is spending nowhere near as much but hopefully our ...