talking of science and those that like to ignore it...
It's hard to pin down exactly what prime minister Tony Abbott really believes on climate change, but his policies could only have been developed by someone who believes global warming is a hoax.
Perhaps nothing better exemplifies the spinelessness, hypocrisy and turpitude of prime minister Tony Abbott's position on climate change than his comments on 3AW in December 2009: "Climate change is real. But I think there are lots of legitimate questions about its extent, how much humans are causing it, and certainly there is a very real and necessary debate about the mechanism for dealing with it."
Abbott made this sneering reference to climate science and global climate change mitigation efforts one day after becoming the leader of the Liberal party, prevailing over Malcolm Turnbull by a single vote. Just a day before, the policy position of that party was support for an emissions trading scheme and acknowledgement of the dangers posed by global warming that had been long confirmed by the scientific community.
The events that precipitated Abbott's comments are important, because they reveal the character of the man who is now prime minister.
A month before, on 9 November, senior senator and climate denier Nick Minchin appeared on the Four Corners program on the ABC. Minchin suggested that a global left-wing conspiracy was behind climate change. Minchin encouraged the extreme fringe elements of the Liberal and National parties to speak out against Turnbull: "I don't mind being branded a sceptic about the theory that that human emissions and CO2 are the main driver of global change - of global warming. I don't accept that and I've said that publically. I guess if I can say it, I would hope that others would feel free to do so."
Several senators did so, including ultra-conservative South Australian Liberal senator Cory Bernardi and Victorian Liberal senator Julian McGuaran, who threatened to cross the floor against any emissions trading deal negotiated by Turnbull. The climate denier caucus delivered Abbott the votes he needed to defeat the moderate Turnbull
Having become leader by the grace of this extreme fringe element, Abbott was pandering the day after his elevation to Liberal leader.
But even in his pandering, Abbott was hedging. The polls showed that most Australians supported climate action, so he could not, like Minchin, come out directly and deny it was real. Instead, he used talking points imported from the USA designed to cast uncertainty and doubt on the reality of climate change, without denying it outright.
The comments received relatively little coverage, as they were caught up in the maelstrom of debate and coverage of the fallout of the Liberal leadership spill, the defeat of the carbon pollution reduction scheme legislation in the senate and the global disappointment in Copenhagen.
But Abbott's comments are illustrative. Their purpose was to dissimulate and deceive, to undermine the very notion that anything could or should be done to address or mitigate global warming.
Abbott's real views are hard to pin down.
Well before the leadership spill, Abbott has come out on the climate denialist side, saying in July 2009 "I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change." In October that year, he again used a climate denialist talking point to try to undermine confidence in the scientific community, saying to Channel 9 "I think that the science is far from settled". He repeated the lie about global cooling, which has been recently picked up by his chief business advisor Maurice Newman, saying:
It seems that the world has cooled slightly since the late 1990s. One of the things which I think has disconcerted a lot of people is the evangelical fervour of the climate change alarmists because they haven't pursued their case with the kind of careful moderation that you normally associate with the best scientists.
Yet just a few months before, possibly before there was an inkling that he could become Liberal leader, Abbott said in a Sky News interview on 29 July: "If you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?"
In an interview on the 2UE radio station on 27 November, in the lead up to the leadership spill and just days after a rancorous caucus debate and a failed leadership bid by Kevin Andrews, Abbott said "You can't have a climate change policy without supporting this ETS at this time." He challenged Turnbull to the leadership on that same day.
Possibly the most revealing statement made by Abbott is his infamous climate change is "**bleep**" line. He said to a small audience with a local reporter present in October 2009: "The argument [on climate change] is absolute bleep... however, the politics of this are tough for us. 80 per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger."
Here, perhaps, we glimpse the truth behind Abbott's changing position on climate change action. It comes down, not values or morality, but "the politics".
The inconsistency, weasel words and hedging has continued over the last five years. During the most toxic periods of Abbott's scare campaign against the carbon price, he still declined to fully deny the reality of global warming. For example, he said on the ABC on 9 November 2011 "I think that climate change is real, mankind does make a contribution and we should have strong and effective policies to deal with it."
Yet a month earlier in an interview with Alan Jones on 2GB, he equated the scientific consensus on global warming to "theology" – a common denialist talking point:
ALAN JONES: Shouldn't there be open and intelligent debate in a science which is not settled?
TONY ABBOTT: Well, Alan, I certainly accept that there's been far too much theology and not enough proper scientific scepticism in this area, I certainly accept that...
More recently on the global stage, Abbott still vacillates between repeating denialist talking points and more moderate statements accepting the reality of climate change.
