Thank goodness the carbon price phoney war is nearly over. Hopefully fear will be replaced with facts after the government’s Sunday announcement of their carbon emissions scheme.
The Federal Opposition has a lot to answer for. Tony Abbott’s partisan performance over carbon pricing reflects the quality of his leadership, rather than that of the economists he attacked recently. He has been busy bad mouthing them in a manner reminiscent of his calling climate science ‘crap’. He has been prepared to say and do whatever will help him to gain power.
Fortunately, the real work has continued. With perfect timing, Melbourne University hosts a major 3-day conference next week about the implications of global warming: Four Degrees or More? – Australia in a Hot World.
It is a great shame that Australia’s response to the climate change challenge has become centred on ideological positioning by opportunist Abbott and populists such as Barnaby Joyce and Alan Jones.
The same is not the case in the United Kingdom where both sides of politics accept that the science is in and urgent action is necessary. The Department of Energy and Climate Change website has an unequivocal warning about greenhouse gas emissions: ‘Unless action is taken to reduce GHG emissions, there is a high risk of global warming well beyond a 2°C increase since pre-industrial times. This would have significant impact and could lead to severe, and possibly irreversible, damage to ecosystems and natural processes’.
The world is in the process of choosing its climate future and all governments must be held accountable for real, substantial action not just rationalisations that can be sold to the voters. That includes our own governments, including the State level. The choices we make should not be based on misinformation, deliberate sowing of confusion or economic fear mongering.
Our current situation is beyond reasonable doubt: the world is warming, humans are major contributors through greenhouse gas emissions, the consequences will be serious and for some catastrophic, the international community is taking action. In addition a low carbon economy, rather than being a drag on Australia’s prosperity, promises a more healthy nation in many senses of the word.
Ross Garnaut, who recently attacked the mainstream media for their ‘crude’ and ‘distorting’ coverage, is one of the presenters. It will be interesting to see what coverage they give his and other contributions to the ongoing policy debate. Keynote speaker Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Chair of the German Government's Advisory Council on Global Change and other international contributors, should bring some very welcome sober and rational perspectives.
Let’s hope that Garnaut and his fellow presenters get the amount of coverage that the Lord Monckton generates with his attention-seeking travelling circus. It’s more hope than expectation based on the last couple of years of media mischief.
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