MELBOURNE - As Australia battles its worst drought in a hundred years, Prime Minister John Howard called for three key states to discuss ways to coordinate decisions on water supplies at a summit to be held on Tuesday.
Howard invited the premiers of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia to explore ways of delivering water to towns and rural areas supplied by the depleted Murray River.
"The prolonged drought is having a terrible impact on farming communities across Australia," Howard said in a statement on Sunday.
"This is being compounded by water inflows to date in 2006-07 that have been significantly below historical minimal levels."
Each state manages its own water storages and supplies.
The call for a water summit follows Howard's recent conversion to the view that global warming is real and an about-turn this week on his opposition to carbon emissions trading as a way of combating global warming.
Australia said on Thursday it would push for Asia-wide emissions trading as part of a planned "new-Kyoto" pact. But it continues to refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol, although Australia emits more greenhouse gases per person than most other countries.
Many scientists say carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and methane from agriculture is causing the atmosphere to warm. Kyoto obliges about 40 nations to cut emissions by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said temperatures were rising annually in the country, with the hottest year on record in 2005, an increase in heatwaves and a decrease in frosts and cold days.
It said rainfall patterns had changed, with the barren northwest seeing more rain and eastern Australia, the main population and food belt, drying up.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
