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Kevin Rudd’s speech in full
I understand also that down in Glenelg, hundreds of South Australians will be participating in the Havaiana Australia Day Thong Challenge, an event that, I am advised, will see a large number of South Australians floating on massive, mutant versions of Australias national footwear. The challenge, I understand, is to beat the record from Bondi Beach last year, where 908 people were afloat. It should be a memorable Australia Day in Glenelg.

Exactly one year ago, in the lead-up to Australia Day 2009, I came to Adelaide and spoke about the enormous challenge we faced with the worst global recession in 75 years. Since then, the global recession has taken unemployment into double digit figures in many countries across the world, but in Australia, we are weathering the global storm.

As a nation, Australia now has the fastest growth, lowest debt, lowest deficit and the second lowest unemployment rate when compared with the major advanced economies. The strong consumer confidence index numbers released today, showing a 5.6 per cent increase in January, give us further reason to be optimistic about the year ahead.

South Australias unemployment rate actually fell last year – from 5.7 per cent at the beginning of the year, to 5.3 per cent at the end. Thats an extraordinary achievement.

2009 was a tough year, but Australia rose to the challenge of the global financial crisis. It shows what can be done when we all join together and work together, governments of all persuasions state, territory and local; businesses large and small; unions and local communities right across the nation.

On Australia Day 2010, as we enter this second decade of the 21st century, Australians can be optimistic about our future, but we cannot afford to mistake optimism for complacency.

This week I am travelling across the nation ahead of Australia Day in a series of addresses on our need as a nation to prepare for our long-term future challenges. Today, I want to discuss the role of investment in advanced 21st century infrastructure, in lifting productivity growth and responding to the challenge of an ageing population.

The Government will shortly release the third Intergenerational Report, entitled Australia to 2050: Future Challenges. The Australia to 2050 report analyses the key long-term challenges facing Australia over the next 40 years three key facts.

The first key fact: our population will grow substantially over the next forty years. By 2050, the Australian population is expected to grow from 22 million to 36 million. That increase alone will put huge pressure on our towns and our cities. We will need more homes, more roads, more rail lines, more hospitals, more schools just to accommodate so many Australians.

Then take into account that the population is ageing. Today, the proportion of Australians who are aged 65 and over, and are therefore most likely out of the workforce, is 14 per cent. By 2050, that figure will almost double to 23 per cent.

Thats almost one in four Australians, compared to just one in seven Australians in 2010.

The second key fact is that this will significantly affect our economy and working families around the nation. Building the infrastructure we will need for a population of 36 million will require significant investment. On top of that, it will simply cost more to look after older Australians in health, aged care and age pensions.

At the same time, a smaller proportion of Australians will be working, so tax revenues wont keep pace with those rising costs. In 1970, there were 7.5 people of working age to support every person over 65. Today, there are five. By 2050, that number is projected to drop to 2.7.

So we will face higher costs yet slower economic growth, and that is the heart of the economic challenge of an ageing population.

The third key fact is that we will need a sustained, strong and long-term national effort to respond to this challenge with a focus on raising productivity and removing barriers to people participating in the workforce. The Government has already acted to lift workforce participation by removing barriers to work for women and young people, but even with these measures, workforce participation will fall over the next 40 years from its peak of around 65 per cent now to around 60 per cent by 2050, so our long-term response to the ageing of our population must centre on a sustained effort to increase annual productivity growth.

We need to lift average productivity growth back towards the 1990s mark of 2 per cent per year, up from the 1.4 per cent that it declined to in the first decade of this century. Achieving that goal would produce enormous benefits for the nation and for Australian families. On average, every Australian man, woman and child would be $16,000 better off a year in 2050 if productivity returns to the levels under the Hawke and Keating Governments.

But there is a long time lag between implementing the policies that can lift long-term productivity, and experiencing their payoffs. That is why building Australias future must start now.

Yesterday in Hobart I discussed another dimension of the challenge posed by the ageing population, the challenge to the sustainability of government budgets. As I noted earlier, the ageing of our population will result in higher costs for health, aged care and the age pension. It will also result in a smaller proportion of the population being in work, thus slowing the rate of growth of government revenues.

The task of meeting the challenge of the ageing population has also been made more difficult by the aftermath of higher budget expenditure during the late 1990s and in the 2000s, which has locked in a permanently higher spending base. During the growth period of the 2000s, the average real growth in government spending actually increased to 3.8 per cent, compared to 2.5 per cent during the growth period of the 1990s.

In response to this challenge, the Government has committed to a fiscal strategy that will help us manage the challenge of an ageing population by delivering a permanent structural improvement in Australias public finances. The long-term consequence of the Governments medium-term fiscal strategy is that by 2049-50, the Budget outcome will be around 3.5 per cent of GDP better off, or $130 billion in todays dollar terms. The Governments commitment to fiscal discipline builds sustainability into the Budget.

The ageing of our population demands two strategies: first, that we lift our workforce participation and our productivity in order to lift economic growth, and second, that we pursue a disciplined fiscal strategy to deal with the additional needs of our ageing population.

Building productivity is the key for Australias long-term economic future. I describe the new decade that we have just begun as Australias Building Decade, putting in place the building blocks of long-term productivity growth. It is our Building Decade because now is the time when we must implement the big policy changes to drive higher productivity growth.

Advanced infrastructure will play a central role in putting Australia back on track to higher productivity growth. Its productivity impact will be complemented by the productivity benefits of the education revolution and the comprehensive microeconomic reform agenda that the Government has underway.

The Australia to 2050 report highlights something that is well understood by South Australians, that infrastructure plays a key role in long-term economic expansion.

The key points I want to make this afternoon about the role of infrastructure in building Australias future are these:
- First, economic evidence, including that cited in the Australia to 2050 report, shows that infrastructure investment contributes directly to a more productive, growing economy.
- Second, despite this fact, measures of Australias infrastructure investment in recent decades show a trend decline in our infrastructure investment. That has contributed to a growing backlog of infrastructure projects and an increasing number of choke points that have held back our economic growth.
- Third, in response to the infrastructure backlog, the Australian Government has for the first time made infrastructure a national priority.
We are providing national leadership in infrastructure investment through Infrastructure Australia evaluating and for the first time prioritising nationally important infrastructure projects, and through increasing the Commonwealths infrastructure investment.

We are also undertaking regulatory reforms to remove roadblocks to infrastructure investment.

This strategy is a key part of how we intend to make the decade ahead Australias building decade.

The Australia to 2050 report cites the International Monetary Fund showing that theres a direct link between investing more in public infrastructure and increasing economic growth. According to the IMF research, in developed countries like Australia an increase in the public infrastructure stock by 1 per cent leads to an increase in output by around 0.2 per cent.

It also cites Productivity Commission research showing that improving the efficiency of Australias energy and transport infrastructure could, after a period of adjustment, increase GDP by nearly 2 per cent.

This research is not surprising. What is surprising is Australias track record in infrastructure investment.

The long-term trend for that investment is that it has not been increasing, but falling. A 2009 OECD report shows that Australias investment in transport, storage and communications infrastructure as a percentage of GDP fell between the 1980s and 1990s, and fell again in the first decade of this century. In contrast, across the OECD group of developed nations, infrastructure investment for these sectors has been rising.

If this trend continues, Australia will fall further behind other nations on productivity and in the long term, on future growth and living standards. Australias shortfall on infrastructure investment has generated a yawning gap between the infrastructure weve got and the infrastructure we need. We see this in ports, in freight, in rail, on our roads and in broadband.

A few years ago the Business Council of Australia estimated the infrastructure deficit at $90 billion. Addressing the infrastructure gap will involve large scale investment and take a long period of time. One measure of the scale of the task from Citigroup estimates that Australia is set to spend $770 billion on infrastructure in the decade to 2018 underscoring the extent to which this must be the Building Decade.

Given the infrastructure backlog, it must be a national economic priority to facilitate and support investment in advanced infrastructure. The Government is committed to providing that leadership, and investing in the infrastructure of tomorrow, from transport and freight networks to the high-speed National Broadband Network.

First, we have established an overall policy framework for infrastructure investment.

In 2008, shortly after coming to office, the Government established Infrastructure Australia. For the first time in our nations history, with Infrastructure Australia we have a central body to advise on the long-term planning of our infrastructure needs.

Second, we have increased the national investment in infrastructure. That includes a record $36 billion national investment in transport infrastructure in roads, railways and ports.

Third, we are acting on the regulatory reforms needs to foster increased infrastructure investment. We are undertaking significant policy reforms including creating single national regulators for heavy vehicles, rail safety and maritime safety.

Finally today, I want to address just one part of the task ahead in the Building Decade that is crucial to the productivity of Australian businesses, both large and small. That is freight transport our ability to move commodities, food, all kinds of products from one place to another in markets across the nation and across the world.

According to work conducted by IBIS World for a 2009 report by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Australias freight task will triple by 2050 from 503 billion tonne kilometres to 1,540 billion tonne kilometres. Meeting this task will require a massive effort companies will have to improve transport and logistics strategies and efficiencies, and governments will have to undertake substantial new investment and policy reform.

According to IBIS World, transport infrastructure investment should be increased by 2050 to $62.5 billion, almost four times the spending levels of 2008. A 2008 Interim Priority List compiled by Infrastructure Australia, identified as priorities 40 road projects worth $69 billion, eight freight rail projects worth $16 billion and six port and airport projects worth $6 billion.

The needs are truly staggering, but meeting the freight task isnt only about Commonwealth investment. Its also about policy coordination and reform to provide the right incentives for private sector investment as well. Thats why in 2010, the transport priority for the Council of Australian Governments will be freight transport.

Infrastructure Australia is currently focusing its work on two new strategies: a National Ports Strategy and a Freight Network Plan. Initial work by Infrastructure Australia in these areas already suggests some important principles for these strategic plans:
- coordination along the supply chain is a major field for productivity improvement for business;
- the freight network is not simply about individual road and rail projects, but a set of nodes that are interconnected by road, rail, sea and air links, and
- the case for dedicated road and rail freight infrastructure has become stronger to minimise conflict with passenger transport and economic losses.
I look forward to considering this work in detail later in the year.

Building a better future for Australia requires leadership at the national level on key areas of economic policy, but equally, it relies on the efforts of individual Australians in every walk of life, Australians who demonstrate courage, persistence, ingenuity and compassion.

One of the ways we recognise such individual achievement at this time of year is through the Australian of the Year Awards. South Australias finalist for 2010, Julian Burton, is a man who has shown great strength of character and dedication to helping others. Julian sustained life-threatening third degree burns in the 2002 Bali bombings, but he has turned that terrible experience to good in service of the community. Through the Julian Burton Burns Trust, he is working to improve the prevention of, care for and research into burn injury.

I know South Australians will be proud of him as he stands alongside his fellow finalists in Canberra next week when the Australian of the Year is announced.

So for each of you this afternoon, I wish you all a very happy Australia Day for next week and I hope you take a moment to enjoy the sense of pride in being part of a great state and a great country. So its with great pleasure I ask you to raise your glasses filled with the finest South Australian wine as I propose a toast to Australia.

Hedegaard says now is not the time for carbon tax

“It would be wrong timing at this stage to turn to the tax tool,” Hedegaard told the European Parliament, before adding that “it could come later”.

The EU already has a cap-and-trade scheme in the form of its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), but green groups have consistently criticised the scheme, arguing that the cap on emissions is too high and as a result the price of carbon has not risen to a level where it will spur investment in renewable energy.

The US, Japan, and Australia are all proposing to emulate the EU and introduce their own cap-and-trade scheme. However, the model is facing growing opposition with a number of economists and businesses arguing that a carbon tax would prove both simpler and more effective at curbing carbon emissions.

The UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change last year advised the government to intervene in the ETS and introduce a hybrid model that would effectively impose a floor price on carbon, while a number of energy firms have also argued that they need a set carbon price in order to justify future clean tech investments.

Meanwhile, one of the most vocal advocates of a carbon tax, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen, this week stepped up his campaign against US proposals for a cap-and-trade scheme, issuing an open letter to the head of a carbon trading summit in New York, arguing that cap-and-trade schemes represent a “path focused on corporate greed”.

Instead, Hansen advocates a form of carbon tax known as a fee-and-dividend approach. Under this model, a gradually rising carbon fee would be collected at source for each fossil fuel. The money raised from the fee would then be passed on to consumers to help them cope with rising energy and fuel prices. It is envisaged that those who chose less carbon-intensive goods and services would make money from the scheme by receiving more through the dividend than they would have to pay in increased energy and fuel bills.

Hansen says in his letter that fee-and-dividend represents a “transparent, honest approach that benefits the public”, arguing that in contrast cap-and-trade imposes “a hidden tax … because cap-and-trade increases the cost of energy for the public, as utilities and other industries purchase the right to pollute with one hand, adding it to fuel prices, while with the other hand they take back most of the permit revenues from the government”.

Meanwhile, Hedegaard told today’s hearing of MEPs that she could support calls for tougher vehicle emission standards.

The EU already has standards in place that require manufacturers to cut emissions from new cars by around 15 per cent by 2015, but Hedegaard said there could be a case for more demanding targets.

“It can be important to try and review – did we go far enough at the time? Because this is a field where technology is really moving very fast,” she said. “Often we’ve seen industry will protest and say it’s going to be extremely difficult, in fact it’s almost impossible. But then it turns out that when we do these things, we can often do it quicker than assessed before, and claimed before, and they can do it even more ambitiously.”

She added that if as expected her nomination is approved she would aim to introduce measures to cut emissions from road freight.

“We still have not done what the EU should do on lorries,” she said. “There will come an initiative on lorries, that will be one of the first things.”

Heated moments mar Monkton

So what will Christopher Monckton bring to this exasperating state of affairs? The former adviser to Margaret Thatcher is in Australia next week, speaking about the flaws of the push for a global solution to global warming. Last year, Monckton blew the whistle on a draft Copenhagen treaty that political leaders seemed keen to keep away from the prying eyes of taxpayers, who will fund the grand promises.

While nothing concrete came out of Copenhagen, the push for global commitments and a foreign aid bonanza continues. And in this respect, Monckton has plenty more to say. He has written to the Prime Minister outlining legitimate concerns that billions of dollars will be wasted on a problem that does not exist.

When Monckton talks about the science he is powerful. Watch on YouTube his kerb-side interview of a well-meaning Greenpeace follower on the streets of Copenhagen last month. With detailed data behind him, he asks whether she is aware that there has been no statistically significant change in temperatures for 15 years. No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has in fact been global cooling in the past nine years? No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has been virtually no change to the amount of sea ice? No, she does not. Whether, given her lack of knowledge about these facts, she is driven by faith, not facts. Yes, she is driven by faith, she says.

To those with an open mind, Monckton’s fact-based questions demand answers from our political leaders. To this end, he will impress his Australian audience over the next few days. Unfortunately, while Monckton has mastered the best arts of persuasion, he also succumbs to the worst of them when he engages in his made-for-the-stage histrionics. In Copenhagen, when a group of young activists interrupted a meeting, he berated them as Nazis and Hitler Youth. Elsewhere he has called on people to rise up and fight off a “bureaucratic communistic world government monster”. This extremist language damages his credibility. More important, it damages the debate. You start to look like a crank when you describe your opponents as Nazis and communists. You can see how it happens. Talking to a roomful of cheering fellow travellers, the temptation is to hit the high gear of hyperbole. But if your aim is to persuade those with an open mind, this kind of talk will only turn people away. Warning people about the genuine threat to national sovereignty from a centralised global-warming bureaucracy is one thing. Talking about a new front of communists marching your way is another. It sounds like an overzealous warrior fighting an old battle.

The debate about global warming is as much a political debate as it is about the science. Writing in Macleans earlier this month, Andrew Coyne highlighted the errors made by the global warmists who deride their opponents. “If your desire is to persuade the unpersuaded among the general public, the very worst way to go about it is to advertise your bottomless contempt for your adversaries. That the IPCC scientists reacted in this way shows how unprepared they were, for all their activist enthusiasm, to enter the political arena.”

The great shame is that those on the other side of the debate are making precisely the same error. And that is why Monckton’s fact-based concerns are left unaddressed by our political leaders. They have sidelined him from debate. Kevin Rudd has not responded to his letter. Tony Abbott will not meet him. Neither should he. There is no political gain for the Opposition Leader in doing so.

And the reason is clear enough. Inflationary language deflates an argument. Moreover, Monckton is making the worst political error at the worst possible time, right when this debate is slipping from the control of those determined to punish countries for their carbon emissions. Even The Guardian’s resident alarmist George Monbiot admitted last November, “There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease.”

It’s neither denial nor a disease, of course. Just healthy scepticism. And it’s growing in all the right directions for all the right reasons. Scepticism about the science: the revelation that scientists massaged data to suit their case has damaged the public’s trust in the scientific community. Scepticism about the costs: after Copenhagen, we now know more about the grab for a new gravy train of foreign aid from developed nations set to flow to developing countries under the cloak of climate change. Scepticism about the government: the Rudd government will come under increased pressure to explain its rush to implement an emissions trading system ahead of the rest of the world. And scepticism about the role of a campaigning media: even the BBC Trust has called for a review of the BBC’s cheerleading coverage of climate change. What took it so long? Large sections of the Australian media are no less complicit in the same kind of climate change advocacy.

In 2010, healthy scepticism will continue to rise against the global warming alarmists. But only if those such as Monckton treat the public with respect by sticking to the facts and using measured language, not fanciful claims and name-calling.

janeta@bigpond.net.au

PM warns of ageing population time bomb

”Unless we make big changes, we will either generate large, unsustainable budget deficits in the second quarter of the century, or else we’ll need to reduce government services, including health services, as the needs of an ageing population become greater,” Mr Rudd said.

”This is not just a challenge for future governments,” he said. ”It will also become a challenge for working families, because with a smaller proportion of Australians in the workforce, the size of the national economic pie will grow more slowly and, as a result, average family incomes will grow at a slower rate than we’ve become accustomed to.”

The predictions, while dire, are slightly less pessimistic than those in the second such report, released by the then treasurer, Peter Costello, in April 2007. That projected there would be only 2.4 Australians of working age for every one over 65 by 2047, and a quarter of the population would be 65 or more by then.

Mr Rudd said three sources could strengthen the economy – population, workforce participation and productivity growth.

The report predicts the population will grow from 22 million now to 36 million by 2050. But Mr Rudd said with lower fertility rates and stable migration ratios, population policy would form only a small part of the solution. And even with lower barriers to women’s working, Treasury predicts workforce participation will fall from about 65 per cent now to about 60 per cent by 2050. This meant productivity growth would be central to generating economic growth, he said.

Mr Rudd said the rate of productivity growth had hit 2 per cent in the 1990s, after the reforms of the Hawke-Keating governments. But in the past decade it dropped to 1.4 per cent.

He said without a concerted effort to increase productivity, annual productivity growth would be only 1.6 per cent over 40 years. This meant annual economic growth would fall to 2.7 per cent, below the historical average of 3.3 per cent for the past 40 years.

But, he said, a determined push could lift annual productivity growth to 2 per cent, which would raise average annual economic growth above 3 per cent. ”The high productivity path would result in our economy growing an extra 15 per cent by 2050,” Mr Rudd said.

This would add about $570 billion to annual economic output in today’s dollar terms, leaving, on average, each person $16,000 a year better off.

The director of Access Economics, Chris Richardson, said the speech was a ”scene-setter” for the coming Henry review of the tax system, which is expected to propose potentially unpopular changes. ”If you are going to convince people to do difficult stuff, you have to explain why,” he said.

Mr Richardson said a 2 per cent productivity growth would be ”marvellous” but would require a unified government and Opposition committed to economic reform.

”I agree with the Government’s plans for achieving productivity growth. Things like education revolution, infrastructure are very important. But we have to pay for it.”

with Jonathan Pearlman

Rightwing climate change deniers are all for free speech- when it suits them

This is profoundly ironic, as the very people who make such charges — Melanie Phillips is a good example — spend the rest of their time waging war on political correctness. People should be able to do and say whatever they like, they maintain, regardless of whether it might upset or offend others … until, that is, it upsets or offends them. Then they will rant and rage, insisting (in the name of free speech, mind) that you are absolutely forbidden from calling those who deny climate change deniers, or comparing creationists to flat-earthers.

The most blatant exponent of these double standards is a professor of sociology at the University of Kent called Frank Furedi. Writing in The Australian today, he compares Leo Hickman and myself – who had the temerity both to suggest that manmade climate change is real and to criticise journalists and a Tory MP for claiming that the current cold weather in the UK disproves it – to 16th century witchfinders.

Furedi is the eminence grise of the weird movement that arose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a Trotskyist splinter that made a name for itself in the late 1970s for disrupting and attacking other leftwing groups. Through its various incarnations – Living Marxism magazine, Spiked, the Institute of Ideas, the Modern Movement and others – this movement has shifted ever further to the right. Today it occupies the furthest fringes of rightwing libertarianism, asserting a doctrine of extreme individualism which would have made Ayn Rand blanch. You would be hard-put to find a movement more antagonistic to protecting people from oppression or protecting the environment from destruction.

Living Marxism (later called LM), which Furedi founded and which was run by the RCP, campaigned against gun control, against banning tobacco advertising and against banning child pornography. It argued in favour of global warming, human cloning and complete freedom for corporations. It defended the corrupt Tory MP Neil Hamilton, denied the Rwandan genocide and supported the Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansers. Its offshoots attack all attempts to protect the environment as “anti-human”, though nothing damages the interests of humans as much as destroying the biosphere.

The movement’s theme, spelled out repeatedly by Furedi and others, was that people should not be seen (in the words of LM’s manifesto) as “fragile victims in need of protection”; instead they should be encouraged to believe that there are no limits to what they can do or say. But oddly, this works only one way. As soon as you criticise them, they become fragile victims in need of protection, tearfully insisting that their critics are witchfinders who have stepped over the limits of acceptable speech.

When, for example, I exposed some of the movement’s entryist (political infiltration) tactics, Furedi compared himself to the victims of fascism, McCarthyism and the Inquisition. I have never come across anyone else who appears capable of such extremes of callous disregard of other people’s interests and whining self-pity. He seems to me to be a classic example of what Arthur Koestler called a mimophant – someone who has the sensitivities of an elephant towards other people and the sensitivities of a mimosa towards himself.

These people can’t have it both ways. Either, unconstrained by political correctness, we should be able to state our views clearly and point out when someone is wrong, or we should treat each other like delicate flowers which should never be criticised. But we can’t demand the right to contradict others while insisting that they’re witch-hunting if they contradict us.

Monbiot.com

Ski property faces meltdown as global warming chills the market

Recent weeks have seen huge snowfalls in the UK, on mainland Europe and across North America, but research by Unesco’s environment programme suggests long-term global warming will push the snowline up worldwide in years to come.

European ski resorts range from very low-lying ones, such as Lillehammer in Norway which is just 180 metres above sea level, to a few approaching 4,000 metres at Chamonix in the French Alps. In North America resorts are generally higher, ranging from 1,500 to 4,000 metres, especially in the most mountainous areas like Colorado.

If scientists are correct, Austria might see the most spectacular change; its snowline will rise a startling 300 metres by 2050. Sooner than that, the French Snow Research Centre says a 1.8C rise in temperature will shorten France‘s snow cover above 1,500 metres from 170 days to 135. Switzerland’s Association of Winter Sports Resorts says its annual season has been cut by 12 days, just since 1995.

There are no authoritative figures on the international ownership of ski homes but between 2004 and 2007, around 70% of all flats and chalets sold in one large resort in the French Alps were bought by Britons, and dozens of British estate agents market ski properties in Europe and North America. Now they – and the developers behind the resorts – are trying to avoid this lucrative market being consigned to history.

“Many ski towns have been trying to ensure that they’re ‘year round’ to attract visitors in the summer as well as the winter,” says Andrew Hawkins of Chesterton Humberts estate agency.

For example, Morillon, near the Swiss-French border, is only 700 metres above sea level and has introduced climbing, walking and biking trails, as well as fishing and boating lake. It even has a snow-making machine. Other resorts have built golf courses at the foot of mountains to attract tourists in summer.

“We’re witnessing an increase of demand for property in European year-round resorts such as Morzine, Les Gets, Chamonix, Serre Chevalier and Deux Alpes,” says a spokeswoman for the British specialist ski estate agency, Erna Low Property.

Britons are also looking at less obvious locations for chalets and apartments in a bid to guarantee snow for their own use and to maximise their lettings seasons.

“North American resorts tend to be purpose-built at high altitudes, as opposed to European resorts that often expand from – but are restricted by – their rural village roots,” says Sean Collins of Pure International, a UK-based estate agency selling ski properties on both continents. He says Canada has a ski season stretching from November to May, contrasting with December to April in the Alps.

Italy, until recently the poor relation of European ski destinations, is enjoying a resurgence with British buyers because its newer resorts are at a high altitude. Cervinia, about 80 minutes from Turin, has skiing up to 3,000 metres.

“A couple of years ago, following poor snow conditions in many resorts, buyers would only consider high altitude resorts or were hesitant to invest at all,” says Gemma Bruce of GK Italian Property, a British agency selling homes in Italy. “Given the excellent snow in the Alps in the last two seasons, pressure on agents and developers for very high altitude properties has lessened. But buyers are more discerning than ever, only considering resorts at high altitudes with large ski areas – more than 150km of runs – and summer activities,” she says.

Unlikely as it seems, the Moroccan ski resort of Oukaimeden – about a two-hour drive from Marrakech with skiing in winter months between 2,600 and 3,200 metres – is expanding rapidly to accommodate increased business, and boasts of its “snow-assured” status in comparison to more established but low-altitude resorts in Europe.

In addition to the threat of climate change, property sales to Britons in many ski resorts have tumbled because of the recession and weak pound.

In parts of the French and Swiss Alps, “prices of virtually new, top-end properties have plummeted, although this crash is not expected to last,” says Joanna Yellowlees-Bound, who runs Erna Low Property. She is selling flats in the Arc 1950 resort in France for as much as 30% below their 2007 levels, and says she has never seen such reductions in 30 years of selling ski properties.

Rents are also low for some ski homes because of reduced demand from Britons thanks to the strong euro and dollar, and worries over snowfall at low-lying resorts. Ski holiday websites such as sara-residences.com are offering up to 35% off rental costs, plus free ski passes, at resorts in the Alps this month.

Many sites advertise rental prices at Bulgaria’s Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo resorts – where thousands of new apartments have flooded the market in recent years – from just €21 per night. But another website, ski-direct.co.uk, warns that “Bulgarian resorts are at a relatively low altitude; their snow record, early and late season, can be patchy.”

One country where ski chalet owners and resort operators have seen fortunes rise over the past few weeks is Scotland. The best conditions for more than a decade have sparked a boom at Aviemore, Scotland’s biggest resort, where more than 20,000 skiers have taken to the slopes, four times as many as at this time last year. Tourist officials report that ski accommodation bookings are up 500%.

Whatever this winter brings (ski clubs expect perfect conditions because of the widespread snow), the long-term prospects for chalet owners are worrying. Unless, that is, they head for the hills.