Antinuclear

Scott Morrison faces difficult task of repositioning on climate change after assuring voters policies would ‘evolve’ Guardian,  Sarah Martin @msmarto, Tue 4 Feb 2020 The prime minister, Scott Morrison, faces a fresh internal row over climate change policy, with MPs clashing over the issue in the first Coalition party room meeting of the year.

After Morrison declared at the National Press Club last week that the government needed to focus on “practical” climate change action with a focus on mitigation and resilience, MPs debated how the government should reposition its policy response.

The debate followed a spill in the Nationals partyroom on Tuesday morning in which former leader Barnaby Joyce failed to topple Michael McCormack after arguing the government should do more to support coal-fired power and warning the party was at risk of losing its voice within the Coalition.

In the party room meeting, Joyce also argued against “reactionary” climate policies in response to the bushfire crisis, accusing people of using the tragedy to push the “hobby horse” of climate action. He was backed by NSW National MP David Gillespie who suggested the party’s constituents did not want more action on climate policy, and it was not an issue being raised by voters.

But several MPs spoke in favour of more ambitious climate action. The Liberal MP for the seat of Higgins, Katie Allen, expressed support for the “ultimate ambition of carbon neutrality” and an embrace of renewable technology to achieve that goal.

Allen’s call for more action was backed by the North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman, the member for Reid, Fiona Martin, and the Goldstein MP, Tim Wilson, who all supported the embrace of new renewable technologies to cut emissions.

Sources say Wilson and Zimmerman also spoke in favour of nuclear power, commending MP Ted O’Brien for his parliamentary inquiry into the issue, which was tabled in December, and advocating for it to be further explored……..

In an earlier meeting of just Liberal MPs, Queenslander Andrew Laming slapped down colleagues for publicly denying the science of climate change, saying it was akin to doubting “the science of the planes you fly on” coming to Canberra.

He argued that while the party’s MPs should debate the policy response, it was an “impossible position” to be debating science that already underpinned the government’s emission reduction targets.

The NSW senator Jim Molan was criticised for saying on ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night that climate change may not be caused by humans and declaring he was “not relying on evidence” for his climate position.

Conservative Craig Kelly also came under fire for telling the BBC there was no link between Australia’s bushfire crisis and climate change…….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/04/coalition-mps-clash-over-climate-policy-in-first-partyroom-meeting-of-2020