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June 10, 2014
Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minister, finally comes clean on global warming whilst visiting Canada. He is seeking a conservative alliance among "like-minded" countries, that actively aims to both block or dismantle global moves to introduce carbon pricing, and to undermine a push by US President Barack Obama to push the case for action through forums such as the G20. Abbott and Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, represent, and speak for their respective fossil fuel industries.
David Pope
This is not just a case of Australia being left behind on climate change. It's a defense of the coal industry (the rhetoric is about jobs and growth). This position says to hell with the pricing carbon to address climate change. Anything that substantially reduces emissions from coal fired power stations is seen to be destroying Australia's future.
Australia future is selling coal. Quarry Australia forever. Digging up the mineral resources of the country to ensure GDP growth now. So the costs on the coal industry need to be reduced to ensure their profitability.
Harper and Abbott assume that the untrammeled pursuit of self-interest is always good and that government is always the problem, never the solution. Hence the angry denials when the scientists say that government intervention is the only answer to address global warming.
As the scientific evidence for a changing climate keeps accumulating, the Liberal Party’s commitment to denial just gets stronger and their embrace of anti-intellectualism increasingly becomes an anti-science position. The Liberal Party is changing. The initial skepticism about climate science is turning into hostility toward science in general. It is actively engaged in dismantling and de-funding climate change bodies, significantly diminishes government funding for science and scientific research, especially on climate change, and denies the science of climate change.
Both Abbott and the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper have a similar position: they think maximising their countries’ fossil fuel export income is more important than addressing global warming.Abbott Abbott is using his current trip abroad to try and build support for a climate-denial coalition to thwart even the possibility of renewed international efforts.
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What Abbott and Harper and other conservative e climate change denialists are saying in rejecting the need to take steps to reduce carbon emissions is an argument is that the fossil fuel companies have the right to impose the costs and risks on others without taking responsibility.