Global warming can benefit the Australian tourism industry, former Queensland premier Peter Beattie says. Mr Beattie, now a visiting scholar at the University of South Carolina in the United States, this week gave a guest address at the university on sustainable tourism. "There is a silver lining to global warming in Queensland, and it is not just developing clean coal technology to clean up energy generation and a more environmental way in which we inhabit this planet," Mr Beattie told the forum.