14th Feb 2008, 10:22 AM – Senate Motions - Climate Change - Reverse decision to cut funding

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Greens Senator Christine Milne.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) in December 2007, the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, said that the government believe that ‘climate change represents one of the greatest moral, economic and environmental challenges of our age’,

(ii) on 6 February 2008, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Mr Tanner, announced funding cuts to climate-related programs, including $3 million from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Research Vessel Southern Surveyor, $6 million from the Biodiversity Hotspots program and $42 million from the Renewable Remote Power Generation program, and

(iii) in 2007, the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney calculated that perverse subsidies supporting fossil fuel industries amounted to between $6.4billion and $7.2billion in the 2005-06 financial year; and

(b) calls on the Government to phase out perverse subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and to reverse its decision to cut funding to research into climate change science and renewable energy programs.