Shame of Libs who fear Bowen and the cult

These past three weeks show why many Liberals don’t dare call out the climate scare – but must. In those weeks not one Australian climate scientist has called out a scandalously deceitful report the Albanese government used last month to justify hiking our emissions targets even higher.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen claimed that report, by the Australian Climate Service, was being “honest with the Australian people”. False. It instead tried to panic voters into thinking we faced a climate crisis so terrible that we should back even harsher action to slash emissions, like the $8 billion of new green schemes Bowen then announced.

When none of our scientists – and few journalists – called out this report, no wonder Liberal politicians fear they’ll be friendless if they challenge the global warming cult that’s driving power prices through the roof, wasting billions and destroying heavy industry.

Let me explain some of this report’s trickery, which scared up doom headlines like this: “Rising Seas Set To Drown 1.5 Million Australians By 2050”.

That came from this line in this “honest” report: “By 2050 … >1.5 million people (will be) living in areas that will experience sea level rise and coastal flooding risks”.

But this report nowhere explains how those Australians will “experience sea level rise”. Will they just see the sea from a hill?

Common sense suggests they won’t even get wet, because the report claims the seas will rise by – wait for it – 14 centimetres by 2050.

Even if true, take a ruler to the beach and see what 14 centimetres looks like. Ask what difference it would make to, say, Sydney (53 metres above sea level, on average), Melbourne (49 metres) or Brisbane (45 metres).

There were also panting headlines like this: “Heat-related deaths to quadruple in parts of Australia by 2050”.

True, the report claimed heat deaths in Sydney would jump by “444 per cent” but without admitting that’s off such a low base that it’s no more than 151 deaths a year. Less scary.

 But worse is that the source of that estimate is a paper by Sotiris Vardoulakis, which adds that while heat deaths will go up, deaths by cold, 16 times deadlier, will go down much more.

Yet not once does this “honest” report admit that global warming means thousands fewer Australians dying from the temperature.

The report also prompted headlines like this: “Climate change could cost Australians $40 billion per year by 2050”.

And, yes, it says: “The Colvin Review (2024) projected disaster costs … for flood, bushfire, storm, cyclone and hailstorm for a moderate emissions scenario may total an annual cost of approximately $40.3 billion by 2049–50.”

But that’s a misquote. The Colvin Review actually said that cost had nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with Australians just getting richer: “The 2049-50 cost of $40.3 billion considers the anticipated underlying growth in the impact of natural disasters due to factors including increased population, and number and average size of dwellings at risk. These cost estimates do not consider underlying impacts of climate change”.

Again and again, this “honest” report tells half-truths or uses dodgy assumptions to scare us, rather than confirm global warming is less dangerous than claimed.

For instance, it uses the ridiculous “SSP3-7.0” scenario of future emissions, which assumes a world population of 12 billion by 2100, using three times more coal, when the United Nations now believes population will instead peak at 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. Coal use is tipped to fall much sooner.

The report repeats the old scare that “climate change is significantly impacting Australia’s cropping sector”, when the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences last month reported yet another bumper winter harvest, “the third largest crop on record”.

Then there’s the biggest lie: The government’s claim that it can save us from this fake climate doom, when Australia can’t change the climate at all, our emissions being so small. Australians are being fooled, yet our climate scientists say nothing.

So I understand why Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg on T d dh d Tuesday urged his party not to dump the net zero target, “whether you believe in it or not”.

He’s driven by fear, not truth or national interest.

Yet Bragg is wrong.

The Liberals can tell the truth about this climate con or lie, telling voters, yes, there’s a climate catastrophe, but they’ll do less the Labor to, er, “save” us.

Either way spells trouble, but only one lets the Liberals keep their pride. And save our country.

“None of our scientists – and few journalists – called out this Australian Climate Service report.”