Nicholas Stern - Australia's Water Problems Have Potential To Become Far Worse

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AUSTRALIA'S water problems could become at least seven times worse unless climate change is tackled, according to the author of a major international report on global warming. Former world bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern released his Review on the Economics of Climate Change this week, saying global warming risked forcing the world into another depression on the scale of that of the 1930s.

Sir Nicholas said if temperatures were allowed to continue rising at the current rate, Australia's water problems would become more severe and coastal cities would be threatened by large sea level rises. "You've had this long drought and what you are dealing with there is the temperature increase from the middle of the 19th century - where we normally measure it from - of 0.7 centigrade," Sir Nicholas said on ABC radio. You are talking about seven times that ... it is a real possibility under business-as-usual in about 100 years from now."

"And of course it is not just seven times the problems it is much more the problems because these things get more and more severe. You'd be talking about really severe water stress." The Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gases, he said, should be the first priority in addressing climate change. "There's an urgency about this and what we should see is all countries coming in (on Kyoto)," he said.

"Australia's good at technology, they've got a lot of experience with different sorts of minerals, they've got wind and they've got coal and they've got uranium. "There are so many ways where Australia could come in (on Kyoto) and I think would have so much to bring to the table and, to an outsider, it looks as if that's not going to happen."

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http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20694411-5005961,00.html