Originally posted at the International Business Times by Maria Gallucci

Australia is already feeling the effects of man-made climate change, new research confirms, but the country is quickly losing the political will to fight back.

The parliament, under a conservative coalition elected last year, this week repealed a two-year-old tax on carbon dioxide emissions – the country’s only legislated policy for reducing global warming pollution. Yet climate scientists say those very emissions are largely to blame for a decades-long drought.

New model simulations indicate that the long-term decline in winter rainfall over parts of southern Australia – especially the southwest, including the city of Perth – is in part the result of human-caused increases in greenhouse gases and the depletion of the ozone layer, according to research published July 13 in the journal Nature Geoscience. The model projects that winter rainfall will continue to drop this century “with significant implications for regional water resources,” the researchers wrote. (Scroll down for detailed model projections.)   Read Entire Article…