Australia Sensible on Climate Change Nonsense By James Reed

     It is good to see that the Feds are putting mining and jobs ahead of so-called climate change international obligations, and globalist bs like that:
  https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2020/02/24/australia-refuses-to-risk-mining-jobs-economy-in-pursuit-of-u-n-climate-targets/

“Australia’s conservative coalition government will put jobs and the economy ahead of any U.N. demands for it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,  Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said Sunday. Cormann said Australia’s government will work to set new long-term plans addressing greenhouse gas emissions ahead of yet another global climate summit in Glasgow year, however it won’t pursue any net-zero emissions policies that hurt workers in key economic areas. “If we make the wrong decisions, not only would we be harming the Australian economy, harming Australian workers, we would also be harming the global environment,” Cormann said in an interview on local outlet Sky News. “Imposing a target in Australia that ultimately just shifts emissions to other parts of the world where emissions will be higher for the same level of economic output doesn’t help solve the problem that we’re wanting to solve, and just imposes a sacrifice on people here in Australia for no environmental benefit whatsoever.”

     Contrast this sensible attitude to the insanity of the UK climate policy, set to tip this dying nation down the sink:
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/24/boriss-net-zero-scheme-will-cost-taxpayers-3-trillion/

“UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s net zero policy will cost taxpayers the equivalent of a £100 billion HS2 project every year till 2050. The final bill will surpass £3 trillion – the equivalent of £100,000 per household. These are the shock findings of a series of reports into the true cost of Boris’s scheme to decarbonise the UK economy by 2050. The summary, by Andrew Montford of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, finds that no credible attempt has been made by the government to cost its ‘Net Zero by 2050’ scheme, which was bequeathed to it by Theresa May in the dog days of her failing premiership.”     Let us face reality: if things really were as bad as the IPCC and Extinction Rebellion propose, then there is not much that could be done about climate change anyway; mitigation and adaptation, even living in space domes would need consideration. Even if every human committed suicide, the problem would continue due to carbon already in the climate system, which will always be. In any case, as Professor Will Steffen of the Australian National University has written, even Labor’s policy of zero net emissions by 2050, is “too little, too late,” the professor being, of course, from the other end of the debate to us, but it is worth seeing this argument:
  https://theconversation.com/labors-climate-policy-is-too-little-too-late-we-must-run-faster-to-win-the-race-132263

“The term “net-zero emissions” means any human emissions of carbon dioxide are cancelled out by the uptake of carbon by the Earth – such as by vegetation or soil – or that the emissions are prevented from entering the atmosphere, by using technology such as carbon capture and storage. (The net-zero emissions concept is fraught with scientific complexities and the potential for perverse outcomes and unethical government policies – but that’s an article for another day.) So let’s assume every country in the world adopted the net-zero-by-2050 target. This is a plausible assumption, as the UK, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany and many others have already done so. What then should the world’s remaining carbon budget be, starting from this year? The globally agreed Paris target aims to stabilise the global average temperature rise at 1.5℃ above the pre-industrial level, or at least keep the rise to well below 2℃. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that from 2020, the remaining 1.5℃ carbon budget is about 130 GtC (billion tonnes of carbon dioxide). This is based on a 66% probability that limiting further emissions to this level will keep warming below the 1.5℃ threshold. Current global emissions are about 11.5 GtC per year. So at this rate, the budget would be blown in just 11 years.”

So, what should be done, from the perspective of orthodoxy?

“Our exported emissions – those created when our coal, gas and other fossil fuels are burned overseas – are about 2.5 times more than our domestic emissions. Exported emissions are not counted on Australia’s ledger, but they all contribute to the escalating impacts of climate change – including the bushfires that devastated southeast Australia this summer.
So, what would an effective climate action plan look like? In my view, the central actions should be:
•    cut domestic emissions by 50% by 2030
•    move the net-zero target date forward to 2045, or, preferably 2040
•    ban new fossil fuel developments of any kind, for either export or domestic use
The striking students are right. We are in a climate emergency.
The net-zero-by-2050 policy is a step in the right direction but is not nearly enough. Our emission reduction actions must be ramped up even more – and fast – to give our children and grandchildren a fighting chance of a habitable planet.”

     In my opinion, to radically disassemble the Australian economy will be chaotic. Notice as well that immigration and the building industry are not on the list, but surely must be, as well as foreign trade, a greatly inefficient use of fuel (e.g. importing products that could be bought locally). In any case, take away Australia’s fossil fuel exports and there is not much left in this place, and even serving as a dumping ground for the world’s migrants, presupposes that some degree of civilisation continues, since the migrants do not come here because they love us, but to better themselves, obviously, which is simply human nature.