SCIENTISTS PUT AUSTRALIA ON NOTICE

The Commonwealth Academies of Science latest statement on climate change highlights just how much work Malcolm Turnbull has to do if he ever wants to take real action on climate change.

Echoing Labor policy, leading scientists of Commonwealth countries have said that developed countries, like Australia, “will need to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions at or shortly after the middle of this Century.”

Yet the Turnbull Government’s own projections show carbon pollution rising all the way to 2030. At that time it will only be 5 per cent below 2005 levels. This is 20 percentage points short of Malcolm Turnbull’s inadequate target of 26-28 per cent cut.

This latest scientific report reinforces earlier warnings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the Turnbull Government “has not yet come forward with durable climate change policies after 2020 or a long-term emissions reduction goal for 2050.”

We know that Malcolm Turnbull’s ineffective “Direct Action” climate policy has been a complete failure and the long-awaited Climate Change Review offered no additional or alternative climate policy.

The Academies have also warned that each country “must be informed by the best available scientific evidence, monitoring and evaluation.” But instead of following this advice the Liberals chose to wage a war on science and started with Australian’s world class climate science capability. 

 

The Australian Academy of Science’s review into Australian Climate Science Capability released in late 2017 found that climate science in Australia is under-resourced and failing to keep pace with the rest of the world. 

 

In May last year the Director of the CSIRO Climate Science Centre, Dr Helen Cleugh told Senate estimates:

Dr Helen Cleugh, Senate Estimates 31 May 2017

If Malcolm Turnbull is leading the world on climate change, the world is in a hell of a mess. It’s time he took the advice of our world leading scientists rather than the hard-right climate deniers of his Party Room.