China, India speeding up climate change: Report

The economic rise of India and China means climate change is occurring faster than previously thought, stated an official Australian report.

The economic rise of India and China means climate change is occurring faster than previously thought, making efforts to fix the problem more urgent, an official Australian report found on Thursday.

The government-commissioned report called for stronger international commitment to addressing climate change, saying current efforts “still fall far short of getting deep cuts in global emissions underway.”

The government brushed aside the report’s call for more ambitious climate change targets, though Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Australia no longer had the policy of “denial” adopted by his predecessor John Howard.

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Rudd commissioned the report, written by economics professor Ross Garnaut, before his centre-left government was elected last November.

In his interim findings, Garnaut said rapid industrialisation in China and India meant climate change was happening faster than expected and the solution lay in finding clean methods of achieving global economic expansion.

“Due to a sustained period of high economic growth led by China and India, the world is moving towards high risks of dangerous climate change more rapidly than has been generally understood,” he said.

“Faster emissions growth makes mitigation more urgent and more costly,” he said. “The challenge is to end the linkage between economic growth and emissions of greenhouse gases.”