The new Australian government, elected by a landslide on a platform opposing carbon taxes and “global-warming” schemes as United Nations climate theories were imploding, delivered a blunt message to UN alarmists this week: No more “socialism masquerading as environmentalism.” With the new conservative-leaning cabinet taking a stand against UN machinations and radical domestic restrictions imposed under the previous Labor Party government, Australian authorities also publicly refused to sign up for any new contributions, taxes, or charges at this week’s embattled UN global-warming summit in Poland.
Despite the tough talk by officials and the fact that global temperatures actually stopped rising 17 years ago — debunking every one of the UN’s “climate models” — Australia is still ensnared in more than a few dubious international “climate” commitments. In a move supposedly aimed at stopping “climate change,” the nation’s previous rulers agreed to force Australians to drastically reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide — a gas exhaled by all people and critical to life on Earth, which constitutes a mere fraction of one percent of all gases in the atmosphere.
According to an official document outlined in The Australian newspaper, the new government plans to remain “a good international citizen” and is still “committed to achieving a 5 percent reduction” in CO2 emissions by 2020. However, the document, reportedly produced after a cabinet meeting last week, noted that authorities will not agree to any international “climate” agreements that involve squandering more taxpayer money or levying taxes.
Australia “will not support any measures which are socialism masquerading as environmentalism,” the document also states. The new government, led by conservative-leaning Prime Minister Tony Abbott (shown), also explicitly declared that it would not make any payments or accept any liabilities as part of any potential new UN global warming agreement. That means Australia will refuse to play “any role in a wealth transfer from rich countries to developing nations to pay them to decrease their carbon emissions,” the paper reported.
With rulers of poor countries demanding $100 billion per year from taxpayers in wealthier nations to deal with alleged man-made “climate change” this week in Warsaw, the Australian decision represents a potentially major blow to the UN-led extortion effort. The new leadership also refused to send senior Australian officials — Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop — to the ongoing UN summit. Predictably, climate alarmists and wealth redistributionists were up in arms. Analysts and commentators in Australia and other Western nations, however, celebrated the move.
Abbott has also spoken out forcefully on international schemes that involved extracting funds from taxpayers to buy “permits” from a scandal-plagued system supposedly aimed at cutting carbon emissions in foreign countries. According to news reports, the new Australian government blasted the policy based on official forecasts showing that the anti-emissions regime would eventually end up costing $150 billion per year. “This is by far the biggest wealth transfer from Australians to foreigners that’s ever been contemplated,” Abbott was quoted as saying about the controversial scheme.
While the new government has not completely ruled out signing on to an international “climate” treaty, it did lay down some serious obstacles to foisting the scheme on Australians. For one, any new agreement would be considered only if all “major global economies” sign on as well — a prospect that is seen as close to impossible. The U.S. Senate, for instance, is highly unlikely to agree to any such deal, not to mention the regime ruling mainland China. Any more “greenhouse gases” ploys will also be conditioned on “fiscal circumstances,” the government said.
On top of that, the official document highlighted in media reports said the new Australian leadership would review its positions in 2015 “in light of the science and international developments,” which analysts said could result in a range of policy outcomes. The document also pointed out, however, that if the alleged “science” underpinning UN global warming theories becomes even more questionable, Australia might also rein in its “climate” efforts even further. Indeed, the supposed “science” has already imploded with the complete failure of 73 out of 73 UN “climate models.”
As UN and national government “climate” dignitaries assemble in Poland to work on foisting a devastating planetary carbon regime on humanity, UN global-warming theories have become a laughingstock. Meteorology Professor Richard Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who served as a lead author for the third UN climate report, said the UN body had “truly sunk to a level of hilarious incoherence” with its latest assessment.
“They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase,” added Dr. Lindzen, who has published hundreds of scientific papers and is just one of countless scientists lambasting the latest round of UN climate hysteria. The UN-promoted theory dubbed “The Ocean Ate My Global Warming” by critics, meanwhile, is really an admission that its climate models do not accurately simulate natural internal variability in the system.
Because the claim that human activity is responsible for global warming depends on the models being able to accurately simulate natural internal variability, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is essentially admitting, “somewhat obscurely,” that its crucial assumption is unjustified, the MIT expert explained. “Finally, in attributing warming to man, they fail to point out that the warming has been small, and totally consistent with there being nothing to be alarmed about,” the scientist and professor concluded. “It is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.”
With many of the world’s top experts in the field — including more than a few who have worked for the disgraced UN IPCC — tearing apart and ridiculing the UN’s now-debunked claims, the climate alarmists know that the clock is ticking on their bid to foist a global-warming treaty on the world. While the Abbott administration and even senior UN climate alarmists do not expect much out of the Warsaw meeting, climate profiteers, power-hungry governments, international bureaucrats, and other increasingly desperate forces are hoping the summit will lay the groundwork for a strong, binding regime to emerge at the 2015 climate summit in Paris.
In Australia, where voters came out in droves to crush the deeply unpopular carbon tax, Prime Minister Abbott is also working on following through with campaign promises. Having already quashed the “Climate Change Commission,” the new government is now working to repeal carbon taxes — which contributed to soaring business failures in recent years. Despite facing some opposition in the Senate, Abbott and his cabinet appear determined to follow through.
“You’ve already voted on the carbon tax but now it’s the parliament’s turn,” he said in comments apparently aimed at extremist lawmakers seeking to ignore the will of voters by keeping the taxes in place. “This is my bill to reduce your bills…. Abolishing the carbon tax will reduce the average household’s cost of living by $550 a year.” Also on the new ruling coalition’s agenda is scrapping a massive tax on mining profits and scaling back taxpayer-funded handouts to foreign governments.
While Australia’s government takes tepid steps to rein in the increasingly discredited climate juggernaut, the Obama administration continues to spew lawless executive decrees purporting to foist radical schemes on the American people under the guise of preventing “global warming” — despite the fact that there has been none in 17 years. Most recently, the unconstitutional Environmental Protection Agency unveiled new regulations that would effectively prohibit the building of any new coal-fired power plants.
Meanwhile, as the wheels come off the climate bandwagon, the UN is hoping to foist what it calls a “carbon budget” on humanity. The overarching agenda was summarized concisely last year by UN “climate” boss Christiana Figueres, who announced that the mission was to secure a “complete transformation of the economic structure of the world.” Individual liberty, free markets, national sovereignty, and more will all have to go, the UN has admitted on numerous occasions.
If the UN, the EPA, and other power-hungry alarmist outfits are not stopped, the consequences will be disastrous, according to experts. For already-struggling Americans and Westerners, the schemes will ensure dramatically higher energy bills — not to mention soaring costs for virtually everything, as well as bigger, more intrusive government at all levels. For the world’s poor, the fruits of a “carbon budget” would be even more devastating. But with UN global-warming theories already thoroughly discredited and Australia’s government beginning to lead the way back to sanity, as some observers put it, it is not too late to stop the machinations.
Photo of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott: AP Images
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected].
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