Age opinion writer Gay Alcorn has written another excellent piece on climate change today called “Climate change bad guys apply heat to Labor” (14/3/14).
Following on from the observations of Climate Change Authority head Bernie Fraser that the good guys on climate change – climate scientists – have failed to prevail over the bad guys – the climate deniers – she asks why Labor has gone missing in action.
Under Bill Shorten’s leadership, the federal ALP has failed to land a climate punch, with the very occasional low-key climate skirmishes left primarily to the left wing of his party to fight, while the right is nowhere to be seen.
In Victoria, Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews appears to have missed the call to arms, as Ms Alcorn points out, with no hint of a climate policy or statement from him or his shadow climate minister Lisa Neville as yet.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government is recklessly and comprehensively trashing the world-leading clean energy laws of the Gillard Government.
The Climate Commission has gone. The laws putting a price on carbon – the only market mechanism likely to deter fossil fuel companies from spewing unlimited carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – are slated for repeal. Soon to go also are the Climate Change Authority – which sets emission targets according to the science – and the profitable Clean Energy Finance Corporation which lends money to promising renewable energy ventures.
The Abbott Government has now gone beyond well beyond its mandate, cynically appointing closet climate change denier, Dick Warburton to head the review of the Renewable Energy Target. Mr Warburton, who likes to call himself a “skeptic” rather than a denier, refuses to accept the findings of climate science that fossil fuels are primarily responsible for global warming.
The Abbott Government went to the last two elections claiming to accept climate science and promising to retain the Renewable Energy Target.
Lighter Footprints has conveyed its disgust over this appointment to Kooyong MP Josh Frydenberg, reminding him that he publicly has said that he accepts climate science, as does his party.
We trust that the responsible forces within the Coalition will ensure that all election promises, which include retaining the Renewable Energy Target, are honoured and that the Coalition will again show the commonsense and political nous to accept that the world’s top climate scientists know more about greenhouse gases and global warning than laymen.