Sydney- The latest United Nations report on climate change has sent shivers down the spine of the travel industry, Australian Tourism Export Council spokesman Matthew Hingerty said Saturday. He called for urgent action in the wake of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that said the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland's Wet Tropics and the far-north Kakadu national park would face "significant loss of biodiversity" by 2020.
"The Barrier Reef is one of the pins of a 19.5-billion-Australian- dollar (15-billion-US-dollar) export industry and probably employs 50,000 people directly," Hingerty said.
Calling for government action, Hingerty admitted that the tourism industry itself was a major source of the greenhouse gases that are causing the world to heat up.
"We have a large environmental footprint - not to mention the aviation footprint - and these are issues we should have been working with the government on for a long time," he said.
Prime Minister John Howard's government has refused to join the only international initiative to address climate change. It dismissed the IPCC report as containing nothing new and said it would not alter its opposition to signing the Kyoto Protocol.
The government argues it should not have to bear the burden of cutting emissions when developing countries like China and India are not expected to.
"Savage cuts to Australian emissions in isolation of what the rest of the world is doing will simply export emissions and jobs to other countries," Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said. "We cannot solve a global problem unless all of the world's major emitters are part of the solution."
Along with the United States, Australia is the only rich country to shirk binding targets for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. The US is the world's biggest emitter, but on a per capita basis even the US is second to Australia.
Commenting on the IPCC report, opposition Labour Party environment spokesman Peter Garrett lambasted the government for inaction.
"This very important UN report absolutely shreds the credibility of the Howard government on climate change," Garrett told reporters in Sydney. "We urgently need to say seriously that we will reduce our emissions and we will do it now."
Labour, which is way ahead in the opinion polls with an election expected in November, has pledged to sign the Kyoto Protocol. But, like the ruling coalition, it has also pledged that coal miners would keep their jobs and Australia would continue as the world's largest coal exporter.
Unlike the Howard government, Labour refuses to countenance nuclear power as an alternative to coal power. Australia's emissions are so high because it relies on coal for over 80 per cent of electricity generation.
Also attacking the government for inaction was Greens leader Bob Brown, who called for coal mining to be phased out. "This is a huge threat to the Australian nation and its economy and its social well-being - and Mr Howard's got his head in the sand," Brown said.
