Climate furphies

The Spectator Australia I 15 June 2024 I Rowan Dean

At the heart of the Paris Agreement is a major furphy, certainly as far as Australia is concerned. Namely, that we as a sovereign nation should be financing the emissions-reduction efforts of other sovereign nations. The rationale for that is because as members of the Anglosphere we are to blame for the original sin of benefiting from the Industrial Revolution and we must therefore make extra amends in order to ‘tackle’ the imaginary ‘climate crisis’ of ‘global boiling’. Under this peculiar and asinine formulation, Australia must not only attempt to reach net zero emissions without the benefit of emissions-free nuclear power, but we must also hand over eye-watering amounts of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to grifting nations that stick out their hands. Ignored, of course, is the fact that this ‘original sin’ concept absolves high-polluting (and high-emitting) nations such as China and India from any genuine requirement to clean up their own backyards so long as they label themselves ‘developing’.

Worse, once you have signed up to the Paris Agreement you essentially forfeit the right to challenge this blatant neo-Marxist global wealth redistribution scheme.

Furphy number two is the shonky accountant’s trick of how carbon emissions are calculated from specific areas like mining, as well as agriculture, transport and other critical sectors of our economy. As Professor Ian Plimer has already argued in these pages, an honest appraisal of carbon abatement (the amount of carbon this vast continent naturally absorbs versus the small amount we generate due to our relatively small population) has us already at ‘net zero’, if not beyond.

The blame for signing us up to Paris rests with Malcolm Turnbull, and for subsequently signing us up to ‘net zero’ with Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce. To say these acts were treacherous is to put it mildly. The latter was apparently because some unnamed and? mysterious cartel of ‘international financiers’, according to then Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, had threatened to pull the plug on Australia if we didn’t sign up to net zero pronto at Glasgow. Who these mysterious characters were was never explained, nor indeed why they were able to overturn the Morrison government’s 2019 electoral commitment?not?to sign up to net zero. Thanks to these decisions, the Australian centre-right voter has been denied legitimate political choice on the issue of climate change, with only minor parties such as One Nation and the United Australia party prepared to challenge the full climate orthodoxy.

Which is why it was (briefly) so heartening to hear that opposition leader Peter Dutton had said that a future Coalition government would pull out of Paris. That this turned out to be a case of wishful thinking via media miscommunication doesn’t altar the fact that quitting the Paris Agreement should be front and centre of the Coalition’s re-election platform. Why? Because, as nation after nation across Europe is discovering, the blind, unthinking pursuit of net zero nirvana comes with huge economic and social costs. Indeed, Peter Dutton and the Coalition would do well to read Rebecca Weisser’s superb article on the topic in this week’s issue.

The case for nuclear energy in this country is overwhelming. Were Australia to abandon its nuclear moratorium it is highly likely investors would spot the opportunity and we would before long have a thriving industry. That that in turn would mean we would almost certainly end up with far fewer carbon emissions is a boon. But Peter Dutton has fallen into Labor’s trap of putting the cart before the horse and promising to nominate his own emissions ‘targets’ and to explain how nuclear will ‘get us there’ by 2050. This is a mug’s game, which when combined with Labor’s scare campaign about the possible location of nuclear plants or reactors, automatically puts the Coalition on the back foot. On top of which, according to the?Daily Mail, Labor’s ‘Climate Reporting Bill’ will force thousands of Australian small businesses to spend a fortune auditing their ‘climate risks’; a fool’s errand if ever there was one.

Climate change and pulling out of Paris could win the Coalition the next election, along the same lines and voting demographics as the Voice victory. A bold Coalition leader would now be preparing to make ditching Paris and net zero key election platforms necessary to improve our economy, lower the cost of energy and revive our manufacturing base.

Author: Rowan Dean