Global warming threatening north Qld rainforests
© 2000 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
October 19, 2001
A national climate change seminar will today hear devastating predictions for north Queensland's rainforests.
Scientists from around Australia are in Cairns for the joint Environmental Protection Agency-Australian Greenhouse Office seminar.
The CSIRO's Dr Andrew Ash says a 1 per cent increase in global temperatures could kill half of north Queensland's high-altitude rainforests.
He says Australia must dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
"Under the Kyoto Protocol, we're to keep our emissions at about 8 per cent above levels that occurred in 1990," he said.
"We're already about 17 per cent, so we would need to reduce our levels by about 10 per cent or so over the next 10 years.
"That's certainly achievable, but to prevent, I guess, even longer term changes in climate, we'd have to reduce our emissions even more than that and it's not just of course Australia, it needs to be a global effort."
Dr Ash says global warming could have a significant impact on both plants and animals in the rainforests.
"They prefer a slightly cooler environment and you'd have the rainforest types that occur at moderate elevations expanding into the zones where higher altitude rainforest types like it now," he said.
"There's also some potential impacts on animals, certainly the reduction in habitats, but also rising carbon dioxide levels will effect the leaf quality that some of the possums and tree kangaroos depend on which will put those sorts of animals under even more stress."