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Flannery and the Climate Commission.

By Anthony Cox - posted Wednesday, 22 August 2012


Flannery's fellow commissioner, Robert Beale compounds Flannery's erroneous statements by saying that Australia is the "developed" world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide "by quite a way". This is true but neglects to mention that compared to all nations, Australia ranks 11th per capita.

What Beale, an economist, neglects to explain is that Australia's tyranny of distance and unique infrastructure problems, due to the size of the nation and its relative small population, are the major reasons why Australia is ahead of the other developed nations in terms of per capita emissions. For this reason the total emissions are a better reflection of Australia's comparative emissions level; on this basis Australia ranks 17th in the world.

The CC says it is not a political body; this should ensure that it gets its facts right and includes all relevant facts in its reports. However it does not include all relevant information. For instance there is no mention in this report that Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal; or that the exported coal is not subject to a carbon tax with only the approximately 20% of coal mined in Australia which is used for domestic consumption being subject to the world's largest carbon tax.

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The report also continues to misrepresent how other nations are faring with renewable energy. Flannery says this about Germany compared with Australia:

Australia is the sunniest country in the world and one of the windiest, we are lucky to have some of the best renewable resources in the world. Action on climate change will help unlock those resources. Yet we are a late starter. Our worst solar resources are equivalent to some of Germany's best. But Germany is a world leader in installed solar while Australia is lagging behind.

This is incorrect about both Australian capacity for harnessing renewable energy and what Germany is doing. In Australia numerous renewable energy projects have failed including Flannery's geothermal project, Geodynamics, many solar projects and the CC has previously misrepresented the success of wind power in South Australia.

In Germany solar companies are going bankrupt and after Fukushima coal and gas power are being reinstated.

In promoting the new CC report Flannery has defended his record of predictions. Flannery says this about his critics:

I think there's certain people that are always trying to distract, you know, there's certain lobbyists who are always trying to distract people, and one way they do it is play the man and not the ball ... don't deal with the facts but deal with other issues.

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This is egregious; if Flannery did not misrepresent the facts, or ignore them, and report accurately on AGW, its existence and the real merits of the science for and against it, and in particular the manifest failings of renewable energy then there would not be critics of his predictions. This latest report by the CC does not assist his case.

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About the Author

Anthony Cox is a lawyer and secretary of The Climate Sceptics.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Anthony Cox

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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