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UK/OZ/NZ Collaboration - Why UK, NZ and AUS?

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth and as the impact of climate change intensifies, Australia faces increasingly acute long-term water shortages both in the cities and regional areas – with lower rainfall, rivers drying up and dam water levels falling. Australia’s drought has brought water to the top of the national agenda.

In the UK, climate change predictions and increased water scarcity are becoming regular front page news. A 2006 study by the UK Meteorological Office was quoted by the UN as concluding that, with no mitigation of climate change, the severe droughts that now occur only once in every 50 years will occur every other year by 2100.

It's logical that the UK could learn an enormous amount from the Australian experience about the likely impacts of climate change and the water shortages on the risks posed by cocktails of existing and emerging contaminants in water and sediments. They could also gain insight into the relative merits of the various strategies the Australians will trial in order to live with the effects of these environmental changes. In turn, Australia could gain from the huge experience and knowledge in the UK regarding the fate, behaviour and effects of EDCs and other micropollutants on wildlife and human health that is severely lacking in Australia, as well as from current activities in the UK on water recycling.

In May 2009, the Prime Ministers of the UK and Australia met together and agreed to work together to forge an effective international system able to develop global answers to 21st century global problems. They agreed to focus on a number of key inter-related areas to achieve this, including climate change. The relationship between the UK and Australia already reflects common values, a shared history and a closely aligned strategic outlook. Trade and investment between the two countries are strong and people-to-people links extensive. But more can be done together. The Prime Ministers noted that both countries faced comparable challenges and agreed that both continue to have much to learn from each other and much on which to cooperate bilaterally and in international forums.