Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I always treat the people with respect and care, and that compels me to base statements on facts and solid empirical evidence. In cross-examination in 2017, the CSIRO admitted that today's temperatures are not unprecedented. Yet Senator Cormann relies broadly and without specifics on the UN's discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He cites two page numbers on which the UN IPCC makes claims without providing empirical, scientific data within a scientific framework that proves causation—useless! Senator Cormann gives us no proof of human carbon dioxide causing climate variability—none, nil, zip. He and his Liberal and Nats colleagues hide behind the UN smokescreen.

Fortunately I have the antidote: cold hard facts and data. Let me share just some. Each of the UN IPCC's five reports to media and governments is based on a lie. They're a litany of lies. The 1990 report was based on a false claim that reversed the scientist's conclusion that there was no evidence of global warming, and none due to human carbon dioxide. The 1995 report was more brazen. It was based on one scientist, Ben Santer, reversing the scientist's own report. The original 1995 report on the science said:

While some of the pattern-based studies discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part of that change to anthropogenic causes.

None! Yet, without consulting the other authors, one of the chapter's lead authors, Ben Santer, reportedly falsified comments in chapter 8 by submitting this comment:

The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate.

A lie!

In 2001 the next report from the UN was based on the infamous 'hockey stick' temperature graph, whose authors refused to release their data to public scrutiny. That should have meant that we discard it. Instead it was lionised by the UN and by Al Gore and entrenched in people's minds in headlines. In 2007 the UN based its report on unvalidated and erroneous computer models proven hopelessly wrong. The 2014 report, which Senator Cormann has referenced, was also based on unvalidated and erroneous computer models proven hopelessly wrong. The 2014 report's sole chapter claiming warming—that's chapter 10—in its opening sentence misrepresents reality by implying warming from 1951 to 2010, and similarly on page 878. Both are false. From 1958 to 1975 global atmospheric temperatures cooled; 1976 saw a sudden small rise due to the entirely natural Great Pacific Climate Shift over one year, followed, from 1995 through to 1998, by a very modest warming trend. From 1995 to 1998 temperature had been flat, and every year since 1998 was cooler than 1998. In 57 years of atmospheric temperature measurements, temperatures have shown no warming or have been cooling for 34 years. That's 60 per cent of the time with no warming. At the time of the report, in 2013-14, the trend was 16 years of ongoing lack of warming, despite ever-rising human carbon dioxide output due largely to China and India. Yet there is no warming trend, and that continues.

The report identifies no plausible, logical, scientific reasoning for attributing modest cyclical warming to carbon dioxide from human activity. That contradicts empirical scientific evidence and factors needed to claim causal relationships. The report contains no empirical scientific evidence and no logical scientific reasoning for claiming that human carbon dioxide causes warming. It fails to identify any difference between current temperature variability and past temperature variability. Comparisons revealed both previous cycles are similar in modest extent and rate of warming and cyclical stasis after each warming—just a natural cooling and warming.

In its latest report in 2014, confidence in UN IPCC projections was raised arbitrarily to 95 per cent. That implied statistical validity. If the 95 per cent is not statistically derived, it's politically fabricated—just pulled out of the air. To paraphrase and build on the words of Canadian statistician Ross McKitrick, in previous years the UN IPCC was wrong about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about atmospheric temperatures, wrong about the ground based surface temperature, wrong about ocean temperatures, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about sea levels, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And, on that basis, it raised its confidence to 95 per cent. Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre's early investigation of the UN's 2014 report reveals that the UN has cooked the figures to falsely show that, although there had been a lack of warming for 16 or 17 years at the time, the temperatures at the time fall within the range of its early predictions. They did not. Steve McIntyre said that earlier UN temperature projections:

… have been shifted downwards relative to observations, so that the observations are now within the earlier projection …

The UN report tried to misleadingly hide the fact that, contrary to UN projections, ground based temperatures had not risen since its second report in 1995. If the UN IPCC that Senator Cormann relies upon were a corporation, an accountant or financial prospectus, it would be jailed.

A critique of the report by the internationally acclaimed independent climate scientist, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, found that the UN has retreated on at least 11 alarmist claims in prior reports. The new summary for policymakers in 2014 had at least 13 misleading or false statements, and another 11 statements are phrased to mislead the readers or misrepresent important aspects of the science. American climatologist Dr Judith Curry is a professor and chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Reportedly, she's a scientist who initially believed that humans caused global warming. She now publicly questions that. Here are her views on the report that Senator Cormann and the wet Libs rely on:

Diagnosis:—

of the UN—

… paradigm paralysis, caused by motivated reasoning, oversimplification, and consensus seeking; worsened and made permanent by a vicious positive feedback effect at the climate science-policy interface.

Her comments continue:

that's the UN—

steeped in moral panic and hyperbole …

She further states:

The UN IPCC contradicts empirical scientific evidence because it relies on projections from computerised numerical models whose core assumptions contradict Nature—

and reality. 'The discrepancy,' as Judith Curry says, 'between observational and climate model based estimates of climate sensitivity is substantial and of significant importance to policymakers.' But that's what the Liberal's policy is based on.

And here's the trick: instead of science, they use language. Word counts done on their chapter show that in 85 pages, the word 'model' appears 677 times. The word 'simul'—as part of 'simulations' and 'simulated'—appears 370 times. The word 'certain' appears 232 times, even though there's nothing certain. The word 'likely' appears 172 times. The word 'confidence' appears 127 times. The word 'may' appears 79 times. The word 'expect' appears 63 times. It's just a litany of propaganda. The repetition of key words is propaganda to conjure unfounded feelings of confidence and likelihood, and it fooled Senator Cormann. Yet there is a complete lack of empirical scientific evidence that human carbon dioxide causes climate change and needs to be cut. In the real world of science—proper science—propaganda is not science. In the politicised and ideological world of the UN and the Liberal Party though, it is a replacement for science. In the Liberal Party, it is a substitute for science and replaces integrity, and the Nats meekly tag along.

Senator Cormann has revealed the government's lack of understanding of climate and lack of scientific evidence for its ruinous climate policies and imposts on the people. Senator Cormann validates our conclusions and reinforces our determination to expose the gutless wet Liberals, afraid of confronting the facts and afraid of confronting the Greens, with the coward Nationals meekly tagging along. Senator Cormann and the government have failed to provide any scientific basis for their climate position.

I will return in coming months to discuss the State of the Climate report by the BOM and the CSIRO in 2018. I'm going to have a lot of fun in the next four months. We will free this country and every Australian from the clutches of ignorance and dishonesty. We will restore people's rights and save families and employers cash. Families know how to use this cash better. This issue goes to the heart of the Australian governments. This parliament should be ashamed. Senator Hanson and I will delight in restoring scientific integrity and restoring freedom. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Notwithstanding its origins up the back with the tinfoil hat brigade, Labor was happy to support this order for production of documents, because it should be very easy to satisfy. The evidence for human induced climate change is vast, well substantiated and detailed. I believe in climate change, and so do my colleagues. We believe in it because tens of thousands of qualified scientists over decades have measured it and experimented and modelled it. Climate change is real. We should not have to say that in 2020, but there it is. Climate change is real. If there's not enough empirical evidence out there for you, the problem isn't with the evidence. Evidence doesn't stop being evidence and it doesn't stop being empirical just because you disagree with it or don't like what it tells you.

There is a climate conspiracy, but it is not a conspiracy by the tens of thousands of scientists who have contributed to our current understanding. It is a conspiracy by climate denialists to muddy the waters of what is now a very clear scientific consensus. Back in 1995 a Republican strategist, Frank Luntz, was encouraging Republican members to challenge the science. He suggested you do this 'by recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view'. Ten years later he was still at it, with a 2001 memo that said: 'The scientific debate is closing but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. You need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.' He's not the only one to attack the science for political reasons. The flood of misinformation has not abated in the years since. International organisations like the Heartland Institute actively promote false or misleading information about climate change.

We cannot allow the debate about climate change in this country to be derailed by misinformation in the way that it has been in the United States and elsewhere. We have known about the threat of climate change for decades, and the science has only got more certain over time. The truth is that Australians and Australia are uniquely vulnerable to climate change. It places us at risk of longer and deeper droughts, more destructive cyclones and other weather events and, as we saw over the summer, more horrific fire seasons. In 2018 a heatwave saw fruit bats drop dead from the sky. In 2019 heat and drought saw massive fish kills along Australia's waterways. 2020 started with fires that have destroyed up to 80 per cent of our koalas' natural habitats, destroyed thousands of homes and tragically seen too many lives lost. These fires were described as unusual, extraordinary and unprecedented.

This is not business as usual, and yet the government continues to behave as though it couldn't care less. One possible benefit of collating these documents for Senator Roberts may have been that the government would have had the opportunity to reacquaint itself with some of the basic facts. However, their performance over the last few days suggests that, like One Nation, they are full to the gills with climate deniers.

I have come to the sad conclusion that this government will never take significant action on climate change. They are divided down the middle with downright deniers of the science of climate change, and they seem to dictate the government agenda and there appears to be nothing capable of shifting them. Would the environmental burden change things, perhaps, after a summer in which 33 people lost their lives and 3,000 homes were destroyed? The government's policy remains non-existent. Would the economic burden change things?

According to recent research from the University of Melbourne, the cost to Australia of not delivering on the goal of the Paris Agreement, a goal that requires net zero emissions by 2050, is a staggering $2.7 trillion. Yet there's been nothing, no meaningful climate response, from government. Would calls from stakeholders shift this government? Everyone from the National Farmers Federation to the Business Council of Australia is calling for action. No. The truth is this: for a decade, a rump of conservatives in the coalition have blocked every attempt to move the country forward, and they still hold the whip hand—like newly-appointed Minister Keith Pitt, the new minister for resources, who claimed solar panels and lithium batteries could turn out to be this generation's asbestos; former deputy Nationals leader Senator Matt Canavan calling renewables the dole bludgers of the energy system, a phrase distasteful for more than one reason; or Senator Jim Molan, who recently told our national broadcaster that he's not relying on evidence in forming view about climate change. Is there any hope that this government will act? Sadly, I have concluded, no.

Labor will act. I was proud to see the opposition leader on Friday announce our commitment to a net zero target by 2050. Our target is what the world—Australia included—agreed to in Paris. Whether the Morrison government accepts this or not, this goal is fast becoming the reality. Australia has lost 10 years to baseless fear campaigns against climate action and we cannot afford to lose another 10.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you seek leave to continue your remarks later?

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I do, thank you.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.