CLIMATE CHANGE OPINION

Lord Deben was once Margaret Thatcher's minister for the environment. He is now head of the British committee on climate change – the model for Australia's Climate Change Authority. The Tory pulled no punches in his comment on the Abbott government's push to change established climate change policies:
'It lets down the whole British tradition that a country should have become so selfish about this issue that it's prepared to spoil the efforts of others and to foil what very much less rich countries are doing ... It's wholly contrary to the science, it's wholly contradictory to the interests of Australia and I hope that many people in Australia will see when the rest of the world is going in the right direction what nonsense it is for them to be going backwards.'

Christine Lagarde was France's conservative finance minister before taking up her current post as managing director of the International Monetary Fund. On the eve of departing for the February G20 meeting in Sydney, her natural diplomacy did not disguise her thoughts on repeal of Australia's carbon laws:
'Climate change issues and progress are critical ... Australia was very much at the forefront and was pioneering in this field and I would hope that Australia continues to be a pioneer.'

Conservative Australians usually consider the position of United States governments on major international policy issues with respect. Yet here is what Secretary of State John Kerry said in Jakarta last month:
'President ... Obama and I believe very deeply that we do not have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society ... It is time for the world to approach this problem with the co-operation, the urgency and the commitment which a challenge of this scale warrants.'
I hope that many people in Australia will see when the rest of the world is going in the right direction what nonsense it is for them to be going backwards.

In sharp contrast, Prime Minister Tony Abbott asked the visiting Canadian foreign minister late in February for confirmation that climate change was a fad. But even the Canadian government – probably the closest to our own in its reluctance to take strong action on climate change – has accepted the reality of global opinion if not of climate science, and is taking seriously its commitment to match the US target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020.........

from Ross Garnaut, The Saturday Paper, March 15th 2014