Transcript is after the break

Ladies and Gentlemen

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the Canberra region and all the Indigenous people of Australia.

This Friday, 1 July, is the 28th anniversary of the High Court judgement which stopped the Franklin Dam. But in the preceding week of 1983, Tasmania recorded the lowest temperatures in history. It snowed heavily to sea level. The bulldozers in the Franklin and Gordon Valley were stopped. So, Mother Nature got into the act ahead of the High Court!

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott should rethink plans to associate with Lord Monckton, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"Monckton's despicable abuse of Professor Ross Garnaut can't simply be shaken off and accommodated as free speech," Senator Brown said in Canberra.

"Last year, Mr Abbott met Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and he will renew that association next week at a mining conference in Perth. I urge Mr Abbott to think again," Senator Brown said.

Greens Leader Bob Brown today urged federal parliamentarians to unite behind new laws to stop live exports of animals for slaughter.

"We've written to the government and opposition to urge them to make debate on live exports a priority when parliament resumes on 14 June," Senator Brown said in Hobart.

After the hottest and wettest year in recorded history, the seas off northern Australia are also currently warmer than ever before.  This heat has led to increased evaporation and so, rainfall.

 Sceptics and defenders of the coal industry may dispute this scientific data, but they don’t.  Instead, they are arguing that there should be no debate – not, at least, until some undefined time in the future when the cataclysm has passed and its injuries are behind us. 

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office have produced a Google Earth map displaying the impacts of a 4º C temperature rise across the earth.

It highlights why temperature rise must be kept below 2º C

You will need the Google Earth plugin for your browser to view the interactive map. You can download it here

At this National Press Club I acknowledge the traditional owners of the Canberra region and all the Indigenous people of our nation.

This year will be another milestone in politics for the Australian Greens. The sole balance of power in the Senate and a breakthrough into the House of Representatives are both within reach. Australia's voters are looking for more progressive politics and the stable, experienced leadership which we alone have produced over the past three turbulent years in Canberra.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown has welcomed Professor Ross Garnaut's support for the Greens proposal for an interim carbon tax until the nation finalises its carbon emissions reduction strategy.

Professor Garnaut called the proposal ‘another politically practical way forward'.

Senator Brown and Greens climate spokesperson Senator Christine Milne wrote to Prime Minister Rudd last week flagging the $23 per tonne carbon tax, to begin this July and apply only to the 1000 worst polluters in Australia.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown says that, after the Copenhagen collapse, next year's federal election will be a referendum on global warming.

"The 2010 poll is shaping up as a vote for or against Australia taking a lead in fixing global warming below 1.5 degrees. That means a 2020 target of reducing the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent over 1990 levels and, in doing so, taking action for the rest of this threatened world to follow," Senator Brown said.