Tony Abbott unveils Coalition climate change policy

2 February, 2010 by

From the ABC:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has placed a $1 billion emissions reduction fund at the heart of the Coalition’s new $3.2b climate change policy.

Announcing the policy today, Mr Abbott said the Coalition would use the fund and its policy to invest in direct measures to help the public, industry and farmers cut emissions.

Those measures would include planting 20 million trees, a $1,000 solar panel rebate and soil carbon storage.

Mr Abbott said the plan would be simpler, cheaper and more effective than the Government’s emissions trading scheme and would deliver the same 5 per cent cut in emissions by 2020.

“Our policy will deliver the same emissions reductions as the Government’s, but without the Government’s great big new tax,” he said.

The policy would be funded from the Budget over the forward estimates but Mr Abbott is yet to explain where the Coalition would find the savings to pay for it.

But he says the Coalition’s policy is vastly cheaper than the ETS, which he says will cost $40b over the same period.

“It’s careful, it’s costed, and it’s capped,” Mr Abbott said. (source)

And Tony Abbott has used his first question time as Opposition leader to goad Kevin Rudd into a debate on climate change, which Rudd continues to shy away from:

Mr Abbott, who earlier released the coalition’s long-awaited climate change policy, opened question time by directly challenging the prime minister.

“When I first challenged the prime minister to a public debate on climate change, he refused, saying the coalition had no policy,” he told parliament.

“Well, we have a policy which is simpler cheaper and clearer than the government’s.

“Does the prime minister have the guts to have a nationally-televised debate about climate change?” (source)

Answer: NO. And to finish off, Rudd comes out with his usual evasive nonsense:

Mr Rudd said the opposition had some simple questions to answer: Did it understand the science behind climate change, how did it propose to tackle it, and was it fair dinkum?

“Was it fair dinkum?” Oh per-lease. And I think the Opposition understands the science (or now should we say, the lack of science) better than you do, clearly.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Abbott: 4 degree rise "not the greatest moral challenge"

31 January, 2010 by

Needs a new climate adviser

You have to wonder who is advising Tony Abbott on climate. This kind of comment plays straight into the warmists’ hands, especially as we wait for the Coalition’s climate policy, due on Tuesday:

It will deliver the same carbon pollution reduction as Labor’s emissions trading scheme but for a “comparatively modest cost”, he told a Young Liberals convention in Adelaide on Saturday.

Mr Abbott also mocked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for declaring climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time.

“It’s an important issue but even if dire predictions are right and average temperatures around the globe rise by four degrees over the century, it’s still not the ‘great moral challenge’ of our time – as Mr Rudd has described it on 14 occasions – let alone the ‘greatest’ moral challenge of our time – as Mr Rudd has described it at least four times,” Mr Abbott said.

“Adapting to changing rainfall patterns, for example, will be hard but it won’t supplant the threat of war, injustice, disease and want as the biggest problems with which humanity must grapple.”

And, naturally, here is the response:

The Climate Institute’s chief executive John Connor said it was reckless and ridiculous for Mr Abbott to be relaxed about a four-degree rise in global temperatures.

“He’s missed the link that such an increase will, in fact, lead to greater insecurity and instability around the world and particularly in our region.

“It will lead to very significant public health impacts and disease.”

And I’d have to agree that a 4 Celsius rise would probably have an enormous effect on the planet. Tony Abbott has tacitly admitted that the “dire projections” of the IPCC have some validity, whereas in reality the credibility of the alarmist science is disappearing faster than a Himalayan glacier. The point he should have made is that Rudd’s “great moral challenge” could not be based on flawed models and dodgy science.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Abbott's stinging attack on Rudd

20 January, 2010 by

Stinging attack

Not climate specifically, but a good story none the less. This is what we need the Opposition leader to do. Expose the hypocrisy and spin of the Labor government, and in particular Kevin Rudd:

KEVIN Rudd is a “ruthless” politician who went to the polls in 2007 promising anything and everything in order to be elected, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said yesterday.

Mr Abbott said the Prime Minister’s failure to fulfill a raft of election promises was starting to show, contributing to his decline in popularity.

“I think Kevin Rudd is an extremely ruthless politician and I think pre-election he said whatever he thought he needed to say to maximise his chances of winning,” he said. “I think he thought he would worry about the consequences of his promises later.”

Mr Abbott launched the broadside against Mr Rudd after the Prime Minister delivered an Australia Day address in Melbourne on Monday night.

“It was typical Rudd,” Mr Abbott said. “It was full of things that we have to do in 2050, and almost nothing about what he would do this year.”

Great stuff, Tony. Keep it up.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Tom Switzer: The Climate is Changing

15 January, 2010 by

WSJ Online

Another excellent article from Tom on the changing attitudes to cap-and-trade:

Nowhere is the changing climate more evident than in Australia. Last month, the Senate voted down the Labor Government’s legislation to implement an emissions-trading scheme. Polls show most Aussies oppose the complicated cap-and-trade system if China and India continue to chug along the smoky path to prosperity. The center-right Liberal-led opposition, moreover, is now led by Tony Abbott, a culture warrior who has described man-made global warming in language unfit to print in a family newspaper and cap-and-trade as “a great big tax to create a great big slush fund to provide politicized handouts, run by a giant bureaucracy.”

Until Mr. Abbott’s election as opposition leader last month, the climate debate in Australia had been conducted in a heretic-hunting, anti-intellectual atmosphere. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd claimed that climate change is the “greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time.” In clear breach of the great liberal anti-communist Sidney Hook’s rule of controversy—”Before impugning an opponent’s motives, answer his arguments”—Mr. Rudd linked “world government conspiracy theorists” and “climate-change deniers” to “vested interests.” Much of the media, business and scientific establishment deemed it blasphemy that anyone dare question his Labor Party’s grand ambitions.

Australians had heard a lot of science, much of it poorly explained. But the “dismal science” had been conspicuously absent from the climate debate. There was very little serious analysis of the economic consequences of climate change: What choices did we have to mitigate its effects, and how much would these choices cost us? Labor ministers had emitted a lot of hot air about global warming and the urgency with which resource-rich Australia (which accounts for only 1.4% of global emissions) must act.

All of this has now utterly changed: Australia’s debate has entered a new phase, one that goes beyond the religious fervor and feel-good gestures that had held sway all too often. Suddenly, political strategists are thinking the unthinkable: far from presaging an electoral debacle that was inevitable under Mr. Abbott’s green predecessor Malcolm Turnbull, the issue could be a godsend for conservatives Down Under.

Read it here.

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Tony Abbott at the Sydney Institute

15 January, 2010 by

Tony Abbott delivers an earlier Sydney Institute address

I was fortunate enough to attend Tony Abbott’s policy speech at the Sydney Institute last night and had the pleasure of meeting him afterwards. It was a very interesting speech, with one of the key messages being that environmental matters are being sidelined thanks to the obsessions with climate change. I understand he will announce a climate change policy in a couple of weeks, but the focus of last night’s speech was the Murray-Darling, and the creation of a 15,000 strong land army to tackle environmental problems.

Mr Abbott did touch on climate issues, however:

Of course, Australia has a role in reducing global emissions but we can’t save the world from climate change on our own. To act alone would simply export emissions (and jobs) to other countries. Not only has the Rudd Government’s grandstanding on climate change failed. It’s masked the near total neglect of those environmental problems that Australians alone can fix. In the past two years, there has been almost no progress on improving water use in the Murray-Darling basin, only modest additional use of renewable energy, and no further support for more effective land care. In fact, funding for solar panels, water recycling and land care programmes has been cut. Instead, there’s been a great deal of political barracking plus obsessive support for an emissions trading scheme: a great big new tax on everything that merely masquerades as a programme to improve the environment.

…

A unilateral emissions tax here in Australia would do next to nothing for the environment but would seriously damage the competitive position of our export industries. In the long run, it would damage our ability to fund the environmental improvements here in Australia that only Australians can bring about.

It’s stunning to hear the Greens to give even limited support to ideas on the environment from the Liberals, as the ABC reports:

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young agrees with the Opposition Leader’s critique of the Government.

“They have done little on tackling the Murray Darling Basin – a lot of talk and no action,” she said.

Senator Hanson Young says both ideas have merit, but the Liberal’s track record on environmental issues undermines Mr Abbott’s message. (source)

That’s why they’re changing the track. But we can always count on a knee-jerk reaction from Penny Wong, and we weren’t disappointed:

“It appears Mr Abbott is again making things up as he goes along, stealing from failed Howard government policies when he can’t come up with his own ideas,” Senator Wong said.

“Mr Abbott now has 19 days to release his detailed and fully costed policy on climate change.” (source)

Tick tock tick tock. Penny clearly doesn’t read the papers, or else she would have seen The Australian’s ridiculing of her constant, robotic “countdown mode” just two days ago (see here).

Read the full text of the speech here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Abbott: ETS is a "slush fund"

31 December, 2009 by

Slush fund

Tony Abbott has picked up the point made here yesterday, that the ETS will simply redistribute wealth with no benefit to the climate:

Speaking after the Government said Treasury modelling showed low-income households would get an average of $610 in cash compensation but would only experience price rises of $420, Mr Abbott questioned the purpose of the scheme.

”When the Government starts talking about 120 per cent compensation for some people, it gives rise to the understandable suspicion that the ETS is not about the environment, it’s really about a political slush fund.”

Mr Abbott called on the Government to release the modelling behind its claims. A Government spokesman said the analysis was based on October 2008 Treasury modelling and updated to reflect the lower carbon price forecast in November’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

While it released some detail on the impact on low-income households, the Government has held back on similar information for wealthier households.

Not in the least bit surprised. Taxing the rich is traditional Labor policy.

Read it here.

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Abbott: 5% CO2 reduction is enough

22 December, 2009 by

Australia's contribution

Enough (possibly) to satisfy a part of the “we must do something” camp, and little enough (just) to satisfy the “we mustn’t wreck our economy” camp:

Australia should target a carbon cut of only five per cent following the international failure to agree on emission limits at the Copenhagen talks, the federal opposition says.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to ask him to conduct new modelling on the impact of a go-it-alone emissions trading scheme in Australia, in the wake of the weak outcome at the Copenhagen summit.

He then wants a national debate on the issue.

“All of the previous modelling, much of which is 15 months out of date anyway, was based on the assumption that other countries would have an emissions trading scheme or something like it,” Mr Abbott told reporters in the NSW Blue Mountains on Tuesday.

“After Copenhagen, we know that this is not the case. New modelling needs to be done to show what the effect of a go-it-alone emissions trading scheme would have on Australian industries and on Australian jobs.”

A 5% cut is nothing more than a gesture, however, as it equates to about seven hundredths of one percent of global emissions… so apart from showing “solidarity” with the rest of the world, it will achieve nothing (even if you believe that CO2 is the only dial on the climate, which, by the way, it isn’t).

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Rudd's ETS quandary

22 December, 2009 by

A bit like the ETS

Thanks to the weak-as-water outcome from Copenhagen, the ETS is sunk. Kevin Rudd’s desire to arrive at Copenhagen with a trophy has scuppered any possible chance of the two errors in four words “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”. Just think about it for a minute. If Rudd had not been so stubborn and vain, and agreed to wait until after Copenhagen to try to pass the ETS, Malcolm Turnbull would still be leader of the Opposition (god help us), and there would have been bipartisan support for it. Rudd may have been able to get it through after Copenhagen with Turnbull onside.

But now? No chance. With Tony Abbott at the helm, the Coalition wouldn’t pass it in a billion years, and the only option for the government is to accede to the wishes of the Greens, who are now arguing for 25% – 40% cuts by 2020:

The federal government should start negotiating with the Australian Greens if it wants parliament to pass its plan to tackle climate change, party leader Bob Brown says.

Despite the Copenhagen summit’s failure to deliver strong cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, Labor maintains it will re-introduce legislation setting up its carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), or emissions trading scheme, to the lower house in February.

…

The Greens want to see Labor’s ETS include a 25 to 40 per cent target, which Senator Brown said would help the government fulfil its international obligation.

“They have to now move to targets that would keep global warming below two degrees, and that is where the Greens have been aiming,” he said. (source)

What international obligation is that, Bob? Remember, Copenhagen resulted in no international obligations – just a wish list, that the US and China have probably already forgotten about. As Terry McCrann says, 40% is really 60% per capita by the time you get to 2020, which would send Australia’s economy back to the Dark Ages, which is what we must assume the Greens want for the Australian people. Because people are very low on the Greens’ list of priorities.

It would be suicidal for Rudd to climb into bed with the Greens on this, so he’ll just have to get used to it: the ETS is sunk.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Penny Wong has already ruled out any deal with the Greens:

“The reality is that the Greens have taken a position, in relation to targets, that the Government was not able to negotiate on,” Senator Wong said.

“They indicated they did not wish to have a negotiation unless the Government was prepared to put targets of 25 to 40 per cent on the table. That is not the Government’s policy, that is not the Government’s position.

“We don’t believe that is a responsible way forward.” (source)

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Where's Ruddy?

21 December, 2009 by

Dead ringer

You would have thought that Kevin Rudd, after the “triumph” of Copenhagen, would be bursting to bore the Australian public rigid about the amazing, “historic,” “unprecedented,” [insert fifteen more adjectives here] deal struck and how it’s now full steam ahead for an ETS in February because the rest of the world is committed to doing the same… hang on, that’s not quite right. Unsurprisingly, Kevin has holed up in Kirribilli because his spin-meisters haven’t yet worked out the script. Tony Abbott makes hay:

“You were the one who built Copenhagen up. You were the one who was a friend of the chair. You were the one who was the co-author of the rejected documents. You need to explain yourself.

“Having come back from Copenhagen, instead of explaning the outcome to the Australian people, he is in hiding in Kirribilli House. Now I say to Mr Rudd do the right thing by the Australian people, come out of hiding, don’t closet yourself in Kirribilli House, don’t send out Penny Wong and Kate Lundy and all these other millions to explain the disappointing outcome of Copenhagen – do it yourself.

“I think the public are reacting against the way the government is conducting this debate in these sweeping, moral terms, I mean in the end the debate over how we respond to climate change should be based on fact not faith.

“This is not a theological question, it’s a practical question and I think Mr Rudd risks triggering a very serious backlash from public if he keeps running around like Torquemada – trying to have climate change heretics burnt at the stake.”

Brilliant stuff. More of the same, please.

Read it here (and listen too!)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Copenhagen: the aftermath

20 December, 2009 by

The aftermath

The general reaction has been “a lot of hot air”, which just about sums it up:

GLOBAL leaders went to Copenhagen to save the world but used the final hours to desperately try and save face.

A “frustrated” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last night joined US President Barack Obama in putting the most positive spin on the outcome of the conference, but the final “deal” was condemned across the political spectrum.

Poor countries and green groups were outraged by the three-page “political statement” brokered by Mr Obama – and four other national leaders – in the dying hours.

Mr Obama called the outline of the agreement – yet to be endorsed by most other countries last night – a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough”, but admitted “this progress is not enough”. (source)

Rightly, Tony Abbott lays into Kevin Rudd’s self-serving agenda on the ETS:

The Opposition Leader, who argues Australia should delay a domestic carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) until a substantive agreement has been struck at a global level, said: ”Copenhagen, it seems, has been a very Kevin Rudd kind of agreement. There’s been a lot of words but not many deeds come out of it.”

Mr Abbott said the draft accord was more ”good intentions”, but said it was better than no agreement at all on climate change.

He said Mr Rudd had been wrong to rush the Government’s climate change policy through Parliament. It was shot down in the Senate.

”I hope that he’ll now entirely reconsider his climate change policy,” he said.

Mr Abbott attacked Mr Rudd’s belief he may have been able to influence the outcome of an agreement struck at Copenhagen. ”I think that it was always a great conceit to think that Australia could save the world on its own,’‘ he said.

”The Australian voice should be heard in the world but I think it’s wrong for people like Mr Rudd to imagine that they can be much more than the mouse that roared.” (source)

And the Greens, clearly deranged, want Australia to commit to even deeper cuts, despite Copenhagen achieving nothing on a global scale:

The Greens have demanded that Kevin Rudd commits Australia to a 40 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 despite the failure of the Copenhagen summit to set emissions targets.

A deal struck by world leaders at the climate change summit in Copenhagen includes a global warming limit of two degrees well short of demands from island nations.

Greens leader Bob Brown says the emissions trading bills rejected by the Senate earlier this year allow warming of four degrees. [Actually, Bob, they allow whatever warming or cooling the planet feels like, because nothing Australia does will make any difference to the climate – Ed]

Senator Brown says Mr Rudd should now negotiate with the Greens so his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is reset to keep warming at no more than 1.5 degrees. (source)

Australia’s 1.5% of global emissions determines the fate of the planet. Truly insane! Just think what a 40% emissions cut by 2020 would do to – it would be the end of our economy – oh, hang on, that’s what the Greens want, isn’t it?

At least Piers Ackerman delivers some climate sense:

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who sought to attain some semblance of world statesmanship as a “friend of the chair” appointed by host, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, again demonstrated his lack of diplomatic negotiating skills as conferees failed to agree to a meaningful conclusion.

Fortunately, Rudd’s attempts to scare Australians into supporting an untested emissions trading system in advance of the failed conference were derailed by a new and reinvigorated Opposition, under Tony Abbott, at the eleventh hour.

Had Malcolm Turnbull’s plan to go along with the Labor Party succeeded, Australia would now be suffering under a new tax scheme that would have ensured the collapse of industries fundamental to the economy.

The collapse at Copenhagen into a weak, almost meaningless morass of platitudes and “legally non-binding” (how’s that for humbug?) agreement with no firm limits on emissions provided real-time proof of the inability of the United Nations to organise, let alone operate, anything.That Australia sent more than 100 people to Copenhagen to participate in this gabfest only to return with a piece of paper that reads like a drunk’s New Year’s resolution is an absolute disgrace. What’s more, the whole show will be repeated in Bonn in six months in another exercise of futility, fatuity and duplicity. (source)

Phew, sanity at last.

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