Climate madness from Ross Garnaut

Pontificating…

Ross Garnaut hangs around like a bad smell, pontificating on climate matters when nobody really gives a toss (a bit like Malcolm Turnbull, in fact), and his latest announcement suggests Australia commit to a 25% emissions reduction by 2020:

Professor Ross Garnaut told The Australian Online today that such a goal [2˚C warming] would require Australia to embrace the top end of the [government’s] target.

“Well that’s the 450 parts per million. If the world really was on the path to delivering that that would be a 25 per cent target in Australia by 2020 and 90 per cent by 2050,” he said.

However, he said the Prime Minister would have to wait until he discovered what the world was doing before he committed to such a target.

“I think we’ve got to wait. The wise thing is to wait and talk to others,” he said.

So we have to cut 25% by 2020, but at the same time wait until we see what the world is doing? And even if you can look past that inconsistency, you have to ask, what difference does it make to global emissions if Australia cuts by 5%, or 25% or 100%? Answer: nothing. Anything we do is just a gesture, and a pointless one at that.

And if you can look past that, then you have to ask why they think 450 ppm will guarantee only a 2˚C rise in temperature. The sun didn’t take part at Copenhagen, neither did the oceans, nor the clouds, nor volcanoes, nor cosmic rays, nor the solar system, so I wonder what they all think of this tiny, annoying surface irritant on the planet (i.e. humans) deciding what its climate will be in 2050?