University of Western Australia praised for ditching Bjorn Lomborg Consensus Centre
Students praise UWA for ditching controversial $4m Bjorn Lomborg Consensus Centre think tank ABC News 9 May 15 Students at the University of Western Australia (UWA) say the decision to can controversial Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg’s Australian Consensus Centre is a win for academic integrity and common sense.
The Australian Consensus Centre was going to be set up with the help of a $4 million Federal Government grant, but University Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson last night said the proposed centre was untenable and lacked academic support.
UWA student guild president Lizzy O’Shea said students were concerned about the impact the centre, inspired by self-proclaimed “sceptical environmentalist” Dr Lomborg, could have on the university’s reputation. “It’s a really good sign as far as community action goes that if enough people have mobilised against something, and don’t support it, that people will change their minds,” she said.
“The fact that we had international partners saying they wanted to pull out because of the association. So the reputational damage was probably the main complaint. Continue reading
Abbott govt’s new Renewable Energy Target ensures uncertainty for renewables
Government’s RET compromise guarantees uncertainty for renewables, Michelle Grattan, The Conversation 8 May 15 As the Abbott government prepares Australia’s post-2020 emissions targets for this year’s Paris conference, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council has make an extraordinary intervention in the climate debate.Maurice Newman, writing in the Australian, maintains it’s all a United Nations conspiracy – a power 
grab of massive proportions.“This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN. It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.” Newman claims that 95% of the climate models that we’re told prove the link between human emissions and global warming “have been found … to be in error”.
In his article he targets Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN’s Framework on Climate Change, who has been visiting Australia. Newman writes that “there is a real chance Figueres and those who share her centralised power ambitions will succeed.
“As the UN’s December climate change conference in Paris approaches, Australia will be pressed to sign even more futile job-destroying climate change treaties.”………….. Continue reading
Abbott advisor Maurice Newman has embarrassed even our climate sceptic government
the leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Richard di Natale, suggests Mr Newman’s views have been influential.
MARK BUTLER: I’ve never been particularly clear why Maurice Newman holds the position he does hold, given how central climate change is to the future economic prosperity of Australia.
SIMON LAUDER: Mr Newman says the UN (United Nations) is not working alone, that it’s enlisted compliant academics and gullible media, including the ABC, using fear and appeals to morality to push its agenda.
AUDIO: Little support for PM’s top business adviser over UN climate conspiracy theory ABC Radio PM 8 May 15 MARK COLVIN: The Prime Minister’s top business adviser says the United Nations is trying to use the fear of climate change to orchestrate an anti-freedom, anti-capitalist new world order.
Maurice Newman chairs the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council.
In today’s edition of The Australian he urges Tony Abbott not to listen to the UN and resist attempts to get Australia to sign a climate treaty. Continue reading
Australia’s Education Minister Pyne seeks new home for Bjørn Lomborg climate sceptic centre
Christopher Pyne vows to find new home for Bjørn Lomborg centre, Guardian, Lenore Taylor Calla Wahlquist 8 May 15 Education minister and Lomborg say ‘Australia consensus centre’ will go ahead in a new home after WA university handed back $4m in funding Australia’s education minister, Christopher Pyne, has vowed to find another university to host the Bjorn Lomborg “consensus centre” and is seeking legal advice about a decision by the University of Western Australia (UWA) to hand back $4m in federal government funding awarded for it.
UWA handed back the funding and dropped its connection with Lomborg, saying that lack of support among its academics made the centre untenable….
Pyne accused the UWA academics of “shouting down” views with which they disagreed…………..
UWA academics have been vocal in their opposition to the centre anddemanded that the university sever its contract with the federal government or risk jeopardising its international reputation.
Rachel Siewert, Greens senator for WA and a UWA alumnus, told Guardian Australia that she was relieved the university had responded to pressure from its academics.
“I can now be proud of my university again,” she said…………..http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/08/climate-contrarian-bjrn-lomborgs-centre-dropped-by-wa-university
Public and academic outcry force Uni of Western Australia to ditch Bjorn Lomborg centre
University of Western Australia pulls out of Bjorn Lomborg centre, The Age May 8, 2015 -Kate Aubusson The University of Western Australia has pulled out of its deal to create a “consensus centre” run by climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg and partly funded by the federal government.
The decision is a blow to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose office drove the push to fund the centre.
UWA appears to have bowed to pressure from staff and the public following news the think tank would receive $4 million in government funding.
“I have today spoken to the federal government and Bjorn Lomborg, advising them of the barriers that currently exist to the creation of the centre and the university’s decision to cancel the contract and return the money to the government,” UWA vice-chancellor Paul Johnson said.
“The scale of the strong and passionate emotional reaction was one that the university did not predict,” Professor Johnson said on Friday evening. Continue reading
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES answers Maurice Newman’s attack on United Nations
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES:...” he is certainly not in the majority, not only the majority of scientists, but the majority of citizens around the world, the majority of leaders around the world, are quite clear about the effects that we are actually playing with here and the risks that we have to manage ahead of us.”
UN climate chief responds to tirade from PM’s adviser Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Lateline Broadcast: 08/05/2015 Reporter: Emma Alberici
UN climate negotiator Christiana Figueres says she is willing to meet business leader Maurice Newman in the wake of his extraordinary attack against on UN climate policy – and warns that it would be dangerous for Australia not to act on climate change.
Transcript……………
Christiana Figueres joins us now from our studio in Canberra……………
Climate change making Australia’s hot spells even more costly
Severe heat costs the Australian economy US$6.2 billion a year, New Scientist, May 2015 by Michael Slezak Heat stress costs the Australian economy a whopping US$6.2 billion a year – a finding that shows what other countries might be facing in areas where global warming will make extremely hot days more common. Continue reading
Environment Minister Greg Hunt’s hype about “Direct Action” doesn’t ring true
Greg Hunt hasn’t a lot to show for $660m spent on reducing greenhouse emissions, Guardian, Lenore Taylor, 1 May 15
While the environment minister is proclaiming a ‘stunning’ result, the money mostly went on projects begun under the previous government
Last week the government spent $660m to reduce Australia’s expected greenhouse emissions by 47m tonnes – a result the environment minister, Greg Hunt, described as “stunning” and one starry-eyed commentator suggested was so completely amazing it may have won the next election for the coalition.
So what stunning things did we get for our money? Did we start to transform our economy so we use less fossil fuel in the future? Did we buy lasting change? Not a lot. Mostly we spent it on making sure that projects begun under the former government kept going…….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/01/greg-hunt-660m-spent-reducing-greenhouse-emissions
New Matilda’s Guide to Greg Hunt’s Climate Nonsense
A Simple Guide To Understanding Greg Hunt’s ‘Nonsense’ Carbon Con, New Matilda 26 Apr 15 More than a decade in, Australia still doesn’t have a credible carbon abatement policy. Thom Mitchell explains.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt is doing a stellar job of muddying the rising, warming waters which threaten to submerge the government’s “inadequate” climate policies, but experts say his claims are “quite outrageously misleading”.
After half a decade of rhetoric the government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF), the centre-piece of its ‘Direct Action’ climate policy, has faced its first real test. Continue reading
Australian tax-payers funding shonky climate economics with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre
So is this “methodology” the Abbott Government has spent $4million on any good?……
while cost-benefit analysis can be useful, it doesn’t work when you apply it to climate change policy.
How do you price, for example, the loss of a Pacific island nation and what that would mean for the cultures that have thrived there? What’s the price losing multiple species of flora and fauna or the Great Barrier Reef Jotzo adds:
Climate change is exceptional because it has all of these dimensions that go beyond the practical capability of cost benefit analysis.
Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian’s methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre Graham Readfearn, Guardian 23 Apr 15 Lomborg’s think tank methods underplay the impact of climate change and have ‘no academic credibility’ says leading climate economist. Danish political scientist and climate change contrarian Bjørn Lomborg says the poorest countries in the world need coal and climate change just isn’t as big a problem as some people make out.
Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott says “coal is good for humanity” and there are more pressing problems in the world than climate change, which he once described as “crap” but now says he accepts.
So it’s not surprising then that the latter should furnish the former with $4 million of taxpayer funds to start an Australian arm of Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre (CCC) at the University of Western Australia’s business school.
The CCC has consistently said that targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions are too expensive and money should be spent elsewhere
After a couple of weeks of doubt and confusion over the origins and the funding of the centre, latest reports suggest that the idea came from the Prime Minister’s office.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister told Fairfax media it was “the government’s decision to bring the Lomborg consensus methodology to Australia”.
More on this “methodology” and some pretty fundamental problems with it in a bit.
Students at UWA are gathering names on a petition and campaigning in protest, saying Lomborg’s appointment as an adjunct (unpaid) professor there damages the university’s reputation and is an embarrassment. The University’s Student Guild claimed that “students, staff and alumni” were outraged. Continue reading
“Australia now holds the fate of the world’s climate in its hands”.
The government has indicated it will take a ‘technology neutral’ approach, which explains why Australia is the only nation in the world to axe the (carbon) tax, and efforts to slash the Renewable Energy Target by more than half.
Last year, the federal government approved the world’s largest coal fields in Queensland’s Galilee Basin – resources which the Climate Council reports “can not be developed” because they are “inconsistent with tackling climate change”.
Collectively, the proposed mines would create more emissions than nations like Australia, the UK, Italy and South Africa.
Why The Fate Of The World’s Climate Is Largely In Australia’s Hands, New Matilda, By 
Thom Mitchell, 23 Apr We’re told Australia’s contribution to global warning is minimal. A report out today proves that’s a dangerous lie. Thom Mitchell explains.
As American academic Bob Massey put it, “Australia now holds the fate of the world’s climate in its hands”.
In its pursuit of a solution to the ‘budget emergency’ Australia is using up the ‘carbon budget’ at a rate incompatible with the global goal of limiting temperature rises to below two degrees, a Climate Council report out today has demonstrated.
While Australia is under increasing pressure to announce an ambitious target to limit emissions at home, the report makes clear that it is our reliance on fossil fuel exports that is doing the real damage.
By actively seeking to prolong the dying revenue stream, which has buoyed the economy through the past decade, the Australian government is doing massive damage to the remaining ‘carbon budget’.
At a recent talk in Sydney, Massey was blunt. “If your government and mining companies decide to develop all of the coal and gas currently planned, already on the books, our children will be forced to endure a world very different from what we know,” he said.
To avoid such a world, scientists have developed the ‘carbon budget’ which, put simply, is the amount of carbon dioxide humans can emit into the atmosphere before temperature rises reach two degrees above pre-industrial levels.
On that basis, if all of Australia’s coal were burnt, it would use up two thirds of the ‘carbon budget’. Effectively, 90 per cent of the continent’s coal must stay in the ground. Continue reading
Climate change damage makes compelling economic argument for renewable Energy
even without any damage from climate change itself, the argument of moving to renewables (given the position of the rest of the world) makes good economic sense. When you add the risk of damage from climate change the case is unassailable.
Why would a nation like India waste money on taking poles and wires to every remote village and spending billions on coal power stations and metering when solar panels make more sense? They do not provide power continuously, but they are so much cheaper.
We should invest in renewable energy SMH, April 24, 2015 Crispin Hull “……..storms like the ones this week – which scientists say will become more frequent with global warming – should give cause for reflection. The extent and cost of the potential damage is so high that prudence demands action.
But there is another more significant point. Governments can fix most things, but they will not be able to fix climate change. They will not be able to refreeze the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and make the rising seas fall – a bit like King Canute. The damage will be irreversible for thousands or even millions of years.
But governments can force changes to stop the melt in the first place.
There are several reasons why people see no need for any action at all or no need for urgency. We have always had bad weather events.
Change is imperceptible. The science is not conclusive so we can wait before taking action. Damage is a long time off.
If we see real evidence of climate change we can act then to fix it. Australia is just one nation and can do little on its own.
Because so many people think like this, governments have been able to get away with doing so little. Continue reading
Bjorn Lomborg’s climate contrarianism: where his money comes from
many of the earlier donors to Lomborg’s US think tank have been linked to the
conservative side of politics, some with links to the billionaire Koch brothers.
There’s nothing “smart” about spending $4 million of taxpayer cash on a highly questionable methodology that by design downgrades climate change.
Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian’s methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre Graham Readfearn, Guardian 23 Apr 15 Lomborg’s funding“………Exactly how and where Bjorn Lomborg’s think tank has gathered its cash over the years has been a tough story to get the bottom of.
When the Danish Government’s funding of the CCC ran out in 2012, Lomborg had already registered the US arm of the think tank four years earlier.
Since 2008, the US tax records of the Copenhagen Consensus Center show it has gathered about $5million in income, more than half of which had come in 2012 and 2013 (the most recent years for which records are available).
Lomborg himself was paid $975,000 via the think tank in those two years.
Yet much of the think tank’s income is not disclosed Continue reading
International nuclear lobby pleased with Abbott’s gift to climate contrarian Lomborg
Nuclear lobby backs Abbott’s $4m gift to climate contrarian Lomborg, Independent Australia Giles Parkinson 23 April 2015, When push comes to shove to act on global warming, Big Mining will wheel in nuclear as a ploy to stall the take up of renewables. Is pro-nuclear Bjorn Lomborg’s thinktank in WA just a cynical move by Abbott to kill the clean energy industry? RenewEconomy’s Giles Parkinson runs the ruler over the nuclear option. THE PRO-NUCLEAR lobby has welcomed the decision by the Abbott government to award $4 million to Bjorn Lomborg, a climate “contrarian” who favours nuclear energy and opposes deployment of renewable energy.
Michael Schellenberger, president of the US-based Breakthrough Institute, a pro-nuclear think tank, tweeted over the weekend that the Australian government’s granting of funds to Lomborg was no different to the German government’s funding of an environmental think tank that favours renewable energy.
The difference may be that the Energiewende, or energy transition, is official bipartisan government policy in Germany. But Australia does not – at least officially, although its actions suggest otherwise – embrace climate obstructionism and nuclear technology. And it has defunded independent climate analysis such as that from the Climate Commission.
The tweet from the Breakthrough Institute might be unremarkable, but for that institution’s recent alliance with the pro-nuclear lobby in Australia, and the joint release of an “EcoModernist Manifesto” last week that says present day renewables are incapable of providing zero carbon energy, and that nuclear fission is the only technology capable of meeting most, if not all, the energy demands of a modern economy.
This, it would appear, seems to concur with the not-so-subtle secret agenda of Australian Coalition government policy. Continue reading
Bjorn Lomborg’s climate views have no credibility in the scientific community
“UWA was approached by the federal government” [ to host Bjorn Borg’s Centre, with govt funding]
In an email to supporters of the Climate Council on Friday, former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery said it was “extraordinary” that the government had abolished the Climate Commission “which was composed of Australia’s best climate scientists, economists and energy experts” on the basis of lack of funding only to find the money to “import a politically-motivated think tank to work in the same space.”
“Mr Lomborg’s views have no credibility in the scientific community,” Professor Flannery wrote.
Bjorn Lomborg centre: leaked documents cast doubt on Abbott government claims, The Age April 23, 2015 Lisa Cox, Matthew Knott It was the Abbott government’s original idea for the University of Western Australia to host a think tank created by the “sceptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg, according to leaked talking points.
The government will provide $4 million over four years to bring Dr Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre methodology to Australia at a new centre within the University of Western Australia (UWA) business school. Continue reading
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