CLIMATE scientists from across the world have written an open letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stating they are “alarmed” by cuts to the CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere research program, mostly conducted at Aspendale and Hobart.
“The decision to decimate a vibrant and world-leading research program shows a lack of insight, and a misunderstanding of the importance of the depth and significance of Australian contributions to global and regional climate research,” the letter, written last week, said.
“The capacity of Australia to assess future risks and plan for climate change adaptation crucially depends on maintaining and augmenting this research capacity.”
The scientists said “Australia is a canary in the climate change coal mine, spanning a large range of different climate zones, from the northern tropics to the cool temperate south” and “the CSIRO Hobart and Melbourne laboratories, on the doorstep of the Southern Ocean, are a primary research portal for many nations embarking on Southern Hemisphere ocean and atmosphere research”.
The plea to continue and “accelerate” climate research in Australia came as CSIRO CEO Larry Marshall fronted a senates estimate committee last Thursday (11 February) to answer questions from senators about the planned climate research budget cuts and scientist job losses (‘Jobs go in science cuts blow’, The News 10/2/16).
Mr Marshall said the CSIRO executive team had to make decisions on scientific areas to direct funding “within the envelope”.
He said some of the climate research could be “outsourced” to other institutions such as universities.
When questioned Mr Marshall admitted he had never visited the CSIRO’s Aspendale laboratories, where scientists research the effects of climate change, before the decision was made to potentially axe more than 50 per cent of the 100 staff numbers at Aspendale.
“We’re very much at the beginning of this process,” he said while admitting he “probably” did not know “as much as I should” about the work carried out by scientists in Aspendale.
“I’m sad to say I’ve only been able to visit 22 of the sites. There are a lot more than I realised and they’re a lot further away than I realised,” Mr Marshall said.
Federal Labor Isaacs MP Mark Dreyfus has invited the Prime Minister to visit Aspendale to discuss the importance of the Aspendale centre with “some of the finest scientists in the world”.
“Your government’s cuts to this centre are nothing less than a catastrophe for science in Australia, for international climate change research and for the future prospects of environmental scientists,” Mr Dreyfus said in a letter to Mr Turnbull.
CSIRO deputy CEO Craig Roy signalled the eventual end of scientific research at Aspendale even if climate research funding cuts are reversed.
Mr Roy told the senate estimates committee that staff at Aspendale will likely eventually move to CSIRO facilities at Clayton.
“It has been signalled. It was signalled, to the organisation, I believe in 2014, that’s it’s our long-term strategy – quite separate from this –to actually move our Aspendale staff,” Mr Roy said.
“It’s a very old site … it’s not a site that if I was a world-leading scientist coming into a new organisation I’d be proud to walk into. It needs work and so we want to relocate those staff in good time to Clayton anyway.”
If staff are relocated to Clayton atmospheric records at the Aspendale laboratories will be maintained.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 17 February 2016
