MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Global sea level projected to rise by one metre by 2100, says Australian report

Prime Minister Julia Gillard: “we don't have time ... for false claims in this debate”

The Australian Climate Commission has warned that acceleration of sea level-rise will be faster than anticipated. Global sea level is projected to rise by one meter by 2100, according to the Commission's first report published on Monday.

The Australian government accepted the Commission's peer-reviewed report, which criticizes media attack on climate science that lacks “credentials in the field.” It noted that attempts have been made to “intimidate climate scientists,” adding to “the confusion in the public.”

One member of the commission criticised the “fruitless phoney debate”, and said that Australia “no longer had the luxury anymore of climate denialism”, as he called it. However polls suggest that support for forceful action on climate change has declined in Australia since the Copenhagen summit in 2009.

Welcoming the report, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, “We've got to get on with the job of cutting the man-made carbon pollution,” and added that “we don't have time ... for false claims in this debate.”

Australia's Opposition Liberal Party stalled the government's carbon trading legislation during the previous Kevin Rudd administration in 2009.

Gillard began a new term as Australia's Prime Minister leading the country's first minority government in the post-World War II era in September last year pledging an Emissions Trading Scheme that helps reduce carbon emissions by five per cent in ten years.

But the Scheme has been put on hold until 2013, as the government seeks public support for its proposed carbon tax.

Australia, where coal is its biggest export, has the highest per capita carbon emissions among developed nations.

A recent major climate science report on the state of the frozen Arctic has found that the melting of ice due to global warming may have a significant impact on the acceleration of sea level-rise in the future. Global sea level is projected to rise by 0.9 meter to 1.6 meter by 2100, and Arctic ice loss will make a substantial contribution to this, according to an assessment report released by a working group of the Arctic Council early this month.