We are moving into a hotter and drier climate, and it increasingly looks as if Sydney is a climate change hot spot. A repackaged CSIRO report, based on 2004 data, said that Sydney's temperatures would rise 4.8 degrees by 2070, and that only one year in 10 would be free of drought. Evaporation rates would rise by 24 per cent, bushfires would become twice as frequent and the coast would be lashed by 100-metre storm surges as sea levels rose. Increasing temperatures of 4.8 degrees by 2070 is a big rise.

Yet the NSW government has done little to address climate warming. There are more cars on the road, there are new coal mines, possibly more coal fired power stations, no subsidies to consumers to install solar power systems, and little serious planning for the sustainability of development in Sydney. The ALP right in NSW appears to lean towards clean coal technologies and is unwilling to embrace water recycling: close the ocean outfalls and recycle waste and stormwater for industry, environmental flows etc. It is unwilling to do anything about the pollution from energy production from coal-fired power stations --the greenhouse emmissions.

The Lemma government is not working on the assumption that the world is going to become warmer. It has few policies to adapt to global warming and even less that work towards arresting it.

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