A report on the flood disaster and climate change will be undertaken by an expert on the federal government’s multi-party committee which is investigating ways to price carbon.
Professor Will Steffen, a member of the climate change committee set up by the Gillard government in September last year, told AAP he was working on a report covering the floods.
The report comes as the Australian Greens called on the coal industry to foot some of the flood damage bill because of the role of burning fossil fuel in contributing to climate change.
Greens leader Bob Brown says half of the revenue earned from a 40 per cent profits tax on the mining industry should be set aside for future natural disasters.
Liberal senator Eric Abetz said the Greens leader should apologise for his insensitive comments.
But Prof Steffen said there was evidence that extreme weather events appear to be increasing.
“We are getting more intense rainfall events as the earth warms but it’s difficult to pin down any individual event,” he told AAP.
“Rainfall events like the type we’ve seen in Queensland are becoming more likely as the earth warms.
“There is a long-term warming trend with or without La Nina.”
The La Nina effect, the inverse of the drought-inducing El Nino effect, results in higher-than-average sea temperatures in the Pacific Ocean leading to heavy rain.
Prof Steffen said he would produce an update on the science for the committee, as part of the Garnaut climate change review update, as well as write his own independent report.
He said there was no doubt that burning coal contributes to climate change and that the increasing burning of fossil fuels meant “we’ve now got a problem on our hands”.
Global reinsurer Munich Re says the high number of weather-related natural disasters and record temperatures around the world provide “further indications of advancing climate change”.
The insurer counted nearly 1000 natural disasters in 2010 - nine-tenths of them weather-related - the second highest number since 1980.
The resulting economic losses totalled $130 billion, the German company said earlier this month.
