Australia's Drought Threatens Economy - Howard Calls Emergency Summit Meeting - AFP

[hatrack]

But climate? Nah - fuck that noise!!!

Australian Prime Minister John Howard Sunday called an emergency drought summit as climate change and rising interest rates threaten a 10-year economic boom -- and his grip on power. Shaping up as the worst drought since white settlement more than 200 years ago, the "big dry" is likely to cut agricultural output by 20 percent and GDP by around 0.7 percent, government officials say.

"The prolonged drought is having a terrible impact on farming communities across Australia," Howard said, announcing that he had called the premiers of three of the worst-hit states to a summit on Tuesday. On the same day, the board of the central bank will meet to consider increasing interest rates for a third time in six months to a new six-year high of 6.25 percent as it fights inflationary pressures. Lurking behind these visible threats to the country's rapid economic growth over the past decade is a prediction by Treasurer Peter Costello that one of the main engines of the boom -- commodities -- is running out of steam.

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With an electorate increasingly ready to blame the drought on global warming, Howard has abandoned his previously sceptical response to the idea that pollution is driving climate change and has announced a series of "clean energy" initiatives. Howard's announcement of a drought summit came as statistics showed that the country's most significant river system, in the Murray-Darling Basin, was at historic lows after six years of drought. About 30 rivers and hundreds of tributaries run across the basin, which provides for about 70 percent of Australia's irrigated farmlands.

Howard will meet the premiers of the states most affected -- New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Opposition Labor Party leader Kim Beazley said Howard had been trailing every other political force in the country on water, and only discovered the issue about 12 months out from each election. "Back in 2003 he said that there would be 500 extra gigalitres flowing down the Murray -- not one drop extra flowed down the Murray," he said Sunday in response to the drought summit.

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http://www.terradaily.com/2006/061105070209.19cp0p1z.html