Might as well not vote in elections if individual actions don't make a difference. As the world's biggest exporter of both coal and LNG Australia is exacerbating global emissions. If not then let all the drug dealers out of jail since the harm is not their responsibility.

Apart from GHG abatement and peer demonstration there is also an early mover advantage to going low carbon. Imported oil will become unaffordable and east Australian gas is going that way. There's plenty of coal but in Australia the biggest users say they want to get out. If Australia went low carbon we'd have the moral authority to slap extra tariffs on goods imported from greenhouse rogues like China and India. There is much to gain from going low carbon ASAP.

Very sensible. I can't help mention that I've been saying the same thing for over five years, see e.g. in this esteemed e-Journal "A Climate Policy for Grown-ups: unsolicited advice to the new government" on November 20 2013 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15728. See point 5 (of 6): "Don’t start forcing emissions cuts until you are certain that the world’s main emitters, and preferably the whole world, are doing the equivalent." And I stand by the other 5 pieces of 'advice' I gave then.

Australia is 15th largest emitter in 195 global nations.
Per capita, Australia is the globe's highest or #2 emitter.

Those who claim that Australia is a minor or even insignificant player are fooling themselves - we are the headline which other countries read.

The money we have wasted on subsidizing the installation of renewables would have been better spent on research and development that will make it easier for us and everyone else to reduce ghg emissions. This could include: helping the effort to develop red meat without the animal and nicer vego alternatives; greater soil CO2 sequestration; better carbon sucking trees; innovations in nuclear power; and more funding of pure science that will provide unexpected spin-offs.

We could also do pro-development R&D such as helping Africa develop higher yielding and more resilient crops.

These are all no-regrets policies. They are justified even if climate turns out to less sensitive to greenhouse emissions than expected.

"Australia’s commitments, no matter what anyone thinks of them, are quite pointless unless they are conditional on action by the world’s big emitters."

This is absolutely correct. We have known this for decades - since before 1990. A bipartisan agreed caveat was included in Australia's commitment to the 'Toronto Targets':
"11 October 1990 The Australian Government adopted an Interim Planning
Target to stabilise greenhouse gas emission at 1988
levels by 2000 and to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by
the year 2005 based on 1988 levels (known as the Toronto
target). An important caveat was included in this
target. This stated that measures which would have net
adverse economic impacts nationally or on Australia's
trade competitiveness would not be implemented in the
absence of similar action by major greenhouse gas
producing nations. Actions would be taken if benefits
were realised in addition to the greenhouse gas emission
reduction benefits, for example energy conservation.
This became known as the 'no regrets' strategy. "
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/Background_Papers/bp9798/98bp04

It was fully recognised in the Treasury report on the modelling for the Rudd Government's Carbon Polution Reduction Scheme ('carbon tax')

Just recently Professor Warwick McKibbin published the cost of taking action that is not part of a total world coordinated action. https://cama.crawford.anu.edu.au/publication/cama-working-paper-series/13677/global-economic-and-environmental-outcomes-paris

And a week or so Brian Fisher (ex head of ABARE and lead author of chapters in three IPCC reports) showed the cost of the ALP and Coalition polices, including in terms of jobs lost and reduce per capita income and lost industry. http://www.baeconomics.com.au/publications

Once again this fellow is just so wrong on so many points its difficult to know where to start. Sure, some relevance could exist were the library analogy in any way actually analogous to what Australia does in this space.. but its far, very far indeed, from the truth. Once again he's simply spreading ignorance. Australia, Australian institutions and Australians in general are VERY proactive in this space. Climate deniers like Lyin'Hell are not part of the solution; they are in fact a major part of the problem.

Any one who has not woken up to the fraud that is global warming, is either simply not very bright, or has something to gain by perpetuating the hoax.

Strongly disagree, David, On the premise, various assumptions/alternative/remedies.

As always this problem is viewed by you and your manifestly moribund moronic cohort, as, why should we do anything or go first!?

Well DUMMY, because it's in our ginormous, exponentially expanding economic self-interest to do so!

Like Automakers scrambling to get onboard as China ramps all-electric car production to over a million units a year.

What happens when just one nation leads by ultra-pragmatic, sane example.

We can/should lead by example, that example being MSR thorium, utilised as the flameless heat source needed to extract all the Methane gas from mined thermal coal.

Then used as transitionary transport fuels that end our reliance on any imported fuel forever!

MSR thorium if coupled to space age deionisation dialysis desalination has the capacity to virtually drought-proof the nation, turn every saline aquifer/seawater into an entirely useable source of high-quality potable water, we can still afford. Able to affordably pump over the highest country, if that's needed!

MSR thorium, coupled to the Graphene highway, means we can jump into the Tesla, drive from Adelaide to Darwin and back without ever needing to stop for a refill unless we decide to. On around ten bucks worth of fuel!

Compressed methane, able to power any internal combustion engine. All while reducing transport emissions by 40%!? Used in a national gas grid to power our domiciles/industry via ceramic fuel cells, by as much as 80% plus.

But only if we are too stupid to just go completely nuclear and run the aforementioned as a couple of pilot projects others can choose to emulate if they're so wedded to coal and the coal barons, they can't or WON'T give it up.

MSR thorium brings with it walk away safe, reliable, affordable, dispatchable, carbon-free power for less than 2 cents per KwH.

Creates a conga line of high tech manufacturers lining up to relocate here. And with them JOBS-JOBS-JOBS, TAXPAYERS-TAXPAYERS-TAXPAYERS and exports-exports-exports, forever, DUMMY! Long after all our coal/gas mines are just windswept holes in the ground, DUMMY!
Alan B.

Yes, there are holes you could drive a double-wide load through in our emissions! Given that we as the biggest exporter of coal and gas in the world!?

Could well be responsible for as much as a total combined 40% of total emissions.

Taswegian is right in understanding, these are being produced by the very exports of coal and gas that almost alone is keeping our faltering economy afloat!

But for that bizarre insanity, we could/should hit high emitters with a perfectly justifiable carbon tariff!

As for our insane ultra-dependance on coal and gas exports. We need to get off of this whirlwind and out of the export emissions industry, to replace it with clean green food.

On the clear understanding, the very next boom will be a very long and enduring food boom!

We can and should set ourselves up to take advantage of that by turning our arid inland into a productive garden that supports that very outcome and in spades.

Of assistance would be real tax reform roll out as a single, unavoidable, stand-alone, flat tax of 15%. Applied to all income earned here! No exceptions, ifs, buts or maybes. Made fair but a very generous increase in the tax threshold!

The world's cheapest electricity coupled to the world's lowest, [in real terms,] tax, will have energy dependent, high tech manufacturing, self-funded retirees and the jobs of the future, queuing to relocate to this country. And bringing their tax liabilities with them!

All excellent ideas and well worthy of intensive consideration. Just ignored by conflicted politicians who just fake caring about the country and their fellow Australians.

Concerned only with their bank balances etc., and that of their family, cronies and similarly disposed cohort!?
Alan B.

I strongly agree with Leyno's article.

And have voiced many of the same sentiments in the past, including:

- There is no plastic bubble of greenhouse goodness covering Australia. We are just part of the world climate.

- Most countries couldn't care less about the moral example Australian greenies think they are setting. These countries include the main emitters eg. China, India and (Trump's stripping environmental laws) USA.

Meanwhile LABOR is conflicted between its green-Left and its Center and Right factions who support the mining, energy and manufacturing sector that rely on existing energy levels.

Fortunately this pans out to be Labor's net policies being pretty much like the Coalition's in the end.

Taswegian: "There is much to gain from going low carbon ASAP."

Yes, like more frequent blackouts, selling more diesel standby generators, much higher power prices, driving up the cost of living, scaring away potential investors, driving local businesses offshore, losses of many thousands of jobs, etc.

Alan B.,

If you think that Australia's puerile actions on global warming make us a leader and example for any other nation, you're the dummy. Give one example to the contrary. Gross expense, driven by ridiculous targets and subsidies of useless renewables don't add up to a policy which is sustainable.

Taswegian,

If every individual in Australia took "individual actions" it still wouldn't amount to a row of beans - the quantum is too small - and our "moral authority" is therefore zero. To think that China and/or India are rogues because those governments are trying to bring their people into the 21st century shows just how out of touch one can get.
To suggest otherwise illustrates terminal vanity.

When's the last time President Xi, or any other president, for that matter, asked that Australia's GHG emissions be on the agenda for discussion at the National People's Congress?

Hasbeen: "Any one who has not woken up to the fraud that is global warming, is either simply not very bright, or has something to gain by perpetuating the hoax."

You could add "or is simply gullible"

The out-and-out disagreement in these comments is striking.

I am with the author. Those who think we are part of the problem because of our coal exports don't seem to be saying that we should end these exports tomorrow, or even the next day. Not that this would make much difference, save to Australians, whose standard of living would decline quickly. Brazil and other exporters would supply what China and India want.

If AGW is a problem, then it is a global problem. It may not even be a problem, since a warmer climate is beneficial to almost all eco-systems, the earth is greening and food production has risen over the past fifty years. The evidence that the earth is warming dangerously is equivocal, whatever the Climate Council, BoM and the CSIRO say. They can't produce strong evidence one way or the other, and haven't done so. Not that our governments seem to care.

AGW is government policy (alas), and has a religious element in it. We need much better argument and evidence before I for one could base important government policies, such as in the energy domain, on it.

Leyonjonhelm is correct. The large expanse of Australian foliage and especially the literally millions of tonnes of food we produce takes up more carbon dioxide than we produce.
The Greens just want Australia destroyed, no jobs, no money and sold off to the Chinese.
Price of electricity is so high it stops any chance of jobs being created and is effectively a real tax on the poor. Solar and wind just do not fit the bill and that was the opinion of Bill Gates. This is an enormous mistake we are allowing ourselves to be conned into.
My only consolation is the idiots who support this nonsense like the MSM will drop it like the proverbial hot potato when the problem proves itself when coal is eventually abolished.
What more can you say when Victorian Labour Ministers blamed coal for recent blackouts and high prices? They will shut down more coal plants and double down on this nonsense until even those idiots will see the results of their wrong thinking.

Raycom the general idea is that carbon pricing is revenue neutral so you get tax cuts and welfare increases. With that cash in hand you either keep buying the more expensive high carbon product or buy a now relatively cheaper lower carbon product. Example; electricity.

Calwest I think the Chinese would sit up and take notice if we put a carbon tariff on their exports to Australia. If the carbon price was $50 per tCO2 then imported steel ingot which produced 1.7t of CO2 in China would cost $85 a tonne extra. Standard calcs would apply. However Australia would have to get domestic carbon pricing first.

more pensioners unable to heat in winter and cool in summer due to virtue signallers slaves to their green religion. Of course many of them fly the globe on the public purse while preaching to others.Sickening really. Obviously they have to delete previously pathetically failed predictions as quickly as Hilary deletes emails.

Singleton Engineer runs the "Australia biggest per capita CO2 emitter in the world" line, but it's not actually true. Interesting graph here from Our World in Data plotting CO2 emissions per capita, and income per capita. There's a pretty close relationship. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita-vs-gdp-per-capita-international- So we could solve our CO2 problems by voluntarily going back to the level of Burundi.

The other thing to note is that we might have high per capita emissions, but with .32% of world's population, and 5% of land area, not only doesn't it amount to much, but our land area absorbs most of our emissions. So another solution would be for every other country to shrink to match our population density. Otherwise, not much sign that current "remedies" are going to fix the problem.

Oh dear.
Higher incomes *used* to depend on how many slaves one had. Apparantly we got over that, so we’ll probably get over income vs wattage per capita too. Energy consumption at low efficiencies is not quite the same as productive use. I think there is more room to prosper by innovations improving efficiencies than in burning fossils more expediently.
As for our contribution, we are 100% responsible for our share, regardless. That somone else’s is bigger or smaller is an objection that only the most tiresome of squabbling schoolboys utilise, impressing no one of genuine character.

You're right Rusty. The Greens are being so childish in worrying about our CO2 footprint being larger than other people's. I will remember this next time you run a similar argument. Hope you don't mind me fact checking them though?

And the lower energy innovations will be interesting. I guess someone is working on flying pigs somewhere. They won't need any avgas which will be a huge savings to the world. They should be able to be used instead of jet engines.

If we include the emissions of our exports, then as the largest gas and coal exporter in the world, we're responsible for as much as 40% of it and just plain dumb! I mean look how easy it is for China to bring its lame-duck servants to heels by just delaying or coal exports at the harbour!

Imagine how they would react if we just put a similar customs delay on everything we import from them?

We need to get off of this merry-go-round of subservient dependence. And chart a very different course. As a manufacturer of high tech exports, that we can export to the world along with clean green food grown in Australian owned and operated farms.

As opposed to farms the Chinese own here! Given we lose-lose in any such arrangement! Finally, let me conclude with the observation that thorium is the most energy dense material in the world.

The only thing denser? The moribund minds of the ruling class who've created our current ultra-dependance on coal, foreign investors and China!

On a final note, don't ever expect Labor to grow a brain and get out of coal, China or desert its cozy mates in big business, or even allow a few pilot nuclear power projects. That would be too rational for those union controlled, idiots!?
Alan B.

Fact check all you like Graham.
Our nation’s responsibility for it’s own share is 100% ours, putting it off just makes *our* catch up that much harder.
We won’t be able to just ship it to china like we do our plastic waste. Hell, they’re knocking back that *and* the coal right now, pointing out that we need to export more urgently than they need to import.
And yes, the innovations will be interesting. Some will be societal including our expected transit times, or the scale, location and ownership of generators. We waste half our output by having generators hundreds of miles away, thus wasting both the heat and the cold that could be reticulated to nearby suburbs, in turn reducing electrical loads. The energetics of high speed flight may be harder, yes, but the economics that allegedly justify it may not be so refractory.
What is almost certain is that innovation won’t be generated by the sort of sarcasm you just displayed, nor by the policy constipation of those who can’t get over being a generation behind the greens.

Great Rusty, so now you reckon size does matter? Make up your mind. The only innovation that will limit CO2 emissions is nuclear. All the gobbledy gook about innovation won't change that. Trying to generate power to support a modern society won't be done using low energy dense sources like wind and sun. Or by living next to power generators.

Graham,
I reckon responsibility matters. Size arguments that seek to *dodge* rather than emphasise responsibility are just weak, like vanilla rape. Since our contribution is so small, it should be comparatively easy for us to address our share.
Funny about innovation: Some were all for it if it could save coal generation, even if the technology had not been invented yet. Yet on the use reduction side we have lighting that is an order of magnitude less load, and can be halved again with motion detectors. Generators and motors that have benefited greatly from better field strengths and closer tolerances. Storage losses are substantially reduced and small storage solutions are proliferating. Photovoltaic efficiencies advance annually. Nearby generation *obviously* reduces transmission losses and increases disaster resilience.
We aren't a modern society, we are a steam civilisation dependent on fuels we cannot replace, mistaking profligacy for mastery as aristocracies once did. No financial planner would congratulate the wisdom of a wild spending lotto winner who is simply setting fire to what he could not replace. I am not pretending that any single approach "or" another will solve the whole problem, but a raft of them certainly weaken the case for centralised generation and ownership. Consider how much the nighttime minimum is propped up by time-shifting - the same technique could favour the use of daytime solar peaks and transfer the costs of 24-7 generation to those that need it.
What scares the supply-side snowflakes is not being able to *force* demand.

Rusty Catheter,

You need to understand cost-benefit analysis. There is no point massively damaging the economy, reducing people standard of living, reducing Australia's competitive advantage, forcing previously competitive industries to leave Australia and move elsewhere, reducing jobs and employment opportunities, reducing incomes, reducing tax income thus reducing the funds available for defence, hospitals, medical services, education, infrastructure, etc. and all this for not impact on the global climate.

Peter Lang, I don't think you can argue with someone who says that because our contribution is so "small" despite per capita being up there with the best, it should be "easy" for us to address our "share". He doesn't get basic mathematical concepts. The rest of his contribution suffers from the same inability.

Peter Lang,
You need to understand cost benefit analysis is heavily dependent on assumptions. Assumptions about costs, assumptions about usage, assumptions about the value of the benefits, and assumptions about the discount rate. It may original have been designed to make unbiased decisions, but that certainly hasn't been the result. The figure itself is almost useless without the assumptions - except of course to those who are trying to use cost benefit analysis to justify a predetermined conclusion.

You are making three very dubious assumptions:
1) That it would be massively damaging to the economy.
That's a possibility, but a remote one. Renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels, and their cost is continuing to fall. Much more economic damage stems from our inefficient electricity market, where doing nothing is more profitable than adding capacity.

2) That the government would respond with a Hooverite agenda.
Again, it's possible that a government would behave as idiotically as you describe, cutting services in the futile hope of balancing the budget at a time when the private sector's too weak to pick up the slack. But there's no reason at all do do so - the government doesn't borrow in any currency other than the one it issues, and its value is set by the market. So we need never worry about running out of money. The government can always afford to put real resources (including workers) to good use. And if we ever do become uncompetitive, the markets will adjust our dollar's value downwards until we're competitive again. Conversely if our competitiveness increases, the markets will adjust our dollar upwards.

3) Absence of impact on the global climate.
You seem to assume our actions don't significantly influence others. But our unwillingness to do anything is giving others an excuse for inaction. We could instead exert a positive influence b demonstrating to other countries how to decarbonise economies while still maintaining strong economic growth.

Aiden I am really fed up with being told that solar and wind are cheaper than coal. They simply are not. If they were then our power prices would not keep going up?
They are both totally unreliable and unable to replace current coal and I have been puzzling to understand why idiots like you get away with saying they are a solution.
The filthy traitorous Greens want us destroyed but our equally filthy scientists make money from the lie that we actually increase CO2 when we clearly are absorbing it for China and India.
I await the coming depression which should sort out a lot of this nonsense but would also hope we find a better energy source than coal. I think Alan B is correct about nuclear but I am not sure about Thorium. Although our science community should hang their heads in shame at their corruption in all this debate.

Aidan,

"You need to understand cost benefit analysis is heavily dependent on assumptions."

Did you stop to think about the selection bias underpinning that comment? Have you considered how heavily dependent the GCM projections are on assumptions, and the enormous uncertainty in the climate modelling projections? Have you considered how much greater are the uncertainties when you take the next step to estimate the impacts of global warming?

Do you stop to consider the lack of evidence to support the premise that underpins your beliefs - i.e. the belief that global warming would be harmful, dangerous or catastrophic?

JBower, I agree with your points. Have you read:
'Nuclear power learning and deployment rates; disruption and global benefits forgone'
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169/htm

There is also this opinion piece which summarises the main points and refers to the parts of the paper with supporting details on each main point:
'WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN – IF NUCLEAR POWER DEPLOYMENT HAD NOT BEEN DISRUPTED'
https://www.thegwpf.com/what-could-have-been-if-nuclear-power-deployment-had-not-been-disrupted/

Join Aidan and the Greens by supporting WWF, Here's an example of what you get for your contributions:

WWF’s Secret War

"A yearlong BuzzFeed News investigation across six countries can reveal: Villagers have been whipped with belts, attacked with machetes, beaten unconscious with bamboo sticks, sexually assaulted, shot, and murdered by WWF-supported anti-poaching units, according to reports and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News. The charity’s field staff in Asia and Africa have organised anti-poaching missions with notoriously vicious shock troops, and signed off on a proposal to kill trespassers penned by a park director who presided over the killings of dozens of people. --Tom Warren and Katie J.M. Baker, BuzzFeed News, 4 March 2019 "

Aidan:"You need to understand cost benefit analysis is heavily dependent on assumptions. Assumptions about costs, assumptions about usage, assumptions about the value of the benefits, and assumptions about the discount rate."

You overlook the fact that there is no empirical scientific evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 causes dangerous global warming. You should be aware that AGW is being peddled on computer modelling that is invalid, in fact downright misleading and deceptive -- modelling that erroneously assumes CO2 as a major determinant of climate change, when in fact there are hundreds of factors that affect climate.

Consequently, in the absence of scientific justification, there is no economic justification for taking so-called action on climate change, that is a natural process

JBowyer,
Of course you're fed up with being told things that contradict your delusions. But the truth remains: solar and wind are cheaper than coal.

You claim that that "If they were then our power prices would not keep going up" is based on the false assumption that the rising price of electricity is due to the rising cost of generating it.

In reality, electricity price rises are the result of getting electricity prices residing a more profitable strategy for the electricity companies than generating more electricity is. Meanwhile coal power is unreliable; the recent Victorian blackouts were the result of two of their coal fired power stations being offline at a time of record demand.

Try looking at what the Greens actually want before making accusations about them.

From what evidence do you derive the conclusion that we're "clearly" absorbing rather than emitting CO2? And that claiming otherwise is a lie? All the evidence I've seen so far shows Australia to be a net CO2 emitter.

Nuclear power is one solution, but (as they've found in England) it's not the cheap option that many of its advocates seem to think it is.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Raycom,
A claim that contradicts all the evidence is a lie, not a fact.

There is ample evidence that temperatures have risen even though incoming solar radiation has not.

Aidan, it appears that you have your facts mixed.

Have a read of the following OLO article:

Mathematical modelling illusions
By Jay Lehr and Tom Harris – posted Onlineopinion Friday, 11 January 2019

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20114

Two challenges.
Offer a tender to supply four large brown coal plants in Victoria supplying electricity which will be paid for, what cost to the consumer? No current providers allowed to bid. That would start prices going down and when they were built our power bills will halve and no need for billions of solar and wind subsidy money. The Japs, Indians, Chinese and Germans would be in like Flynn.
Second challenge I am happy to buy waterfront properties for ten bucks a pop as they are all going underwater that is a bargain. Tell me Professor Flannery will sell me his two Hunter river waterfront properties?

JBowyer

'I am happy to buy waterfront properties for ten bucks a pop as they are all going underwater that is a bargain. '

to late. In 1989 the warmist were predicting nations going under by 2000. They are shameless.

Dear Jbower,

You and the other nutters here have been left behind on this ten bloody years ago but here you are, in some little pocket of the internet where you feel you have a few other denier buddies to gee you up.

Srewth mate, time to give it a rest.

Why are you still trotting out this kind of crap?

“The filthy traitorous Greens want us destroyed but our equally filthy scientists make money from the lie that we actually increase CO2 when we clearly are absorbing it for China and India.”

The vast amounts of money tied up in the fossil fuel industry, a fair chunk of it spent on capturing utter fools like yourself to do their propaganda for nix, and you try and flag 'scientists' as the ones in thrall of the filthy lucre?

Get a life.

Raycom,
If you'd bothered to check the comments of that article you linked to, you'd see that I've already explained its flaws.

We already qualitatively know how changing inputs changes outputs. The purpose of modelling is to quantify that.

How hard is it to understand that models are not the source of what we know about the climate?

______________________________________________________________________________________

JBowyer,
The cost to the consumer of new coal plants would be much higher than that of firmed solar, even before you consider the health impact of burning large amounts of brown coal. Solar power has the huge advantage of no fuel cost, and that's something coal will never be able to match.

And forget buying waterfront properties at ten bucks a pop - that just shows a lack of understanding of the real estate market. Land value is still significant even if the buildings have to be floodproof. And even in the low lying areas that could be susceptible to rising sea levels, the land will have value for a few years yet at least - at worst it would be comparable to leasehold, and that sells for a lot more than ten bucks! But a more likely scenario is that governments will spend billions of dollar on seawalls.

______________________________________________________________________________________

runner,
In 1989 this was a new issue to most people. Environmentalists were making claims about what they were genuinely worried could happen.

By the early '90s, the oceanographers were well aware that the sea level rise would be on a much longer timescale.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Peter Lang,
What link do you imagine I have to the WWF?
And what do you think WWF should do to stop the poaching of endangered wildlife?

I'll address your earlier points later today if I have time.

This is just awful! Look ten dollars a property for any properties that are still above water in 1980, the offer stands. Where is all this money from the coal industry? I want some. Probably the same place as all the Russian money that got Australians like me to vote Donald Trump as the US president.
You talk about backward thinking when you are still flying in the face of all logic? The rest of the world are laughing at the West. Stop using cheap power and make it as erratic and expensive as we can whilst real people get on with life.
Computer modeling, now there is a complete and utter balls up from start to finish with attendant peer review, what a joke.
You fools think you are so superior but you, ex public servants have more to lose than me.

'By the early '90s, the oceanographers were well aware that the sea level rise would be on a much longer timescale.'

yep how convenient Aiden. I know millions of years is nothing for evolutionist. They are very good at changing the facts to fit the narrative.

Aidan: "How hard is it to understand that models are not the source of what we know about the climate?"

The models are the source of the predicted increases in temperature deceptively promoted by the IPCC.

As the article states:
"What they do have are mathematical equations considered to be models of the Earth's climate. It is important to properly understand these models since they are the only basis for the climate scare.

Before we construct buildings or airplanes, we make physical, small-scale models and test them against the stress and performances that will be required of them when they are actually built. When dealing with systems that are largely, or entirely, beyond our control, such as climate, we try to describe them with mathematical equations. By altering the values of the variables in these equations, we then see how the outcomes are affected. This is called sensitivity testing, the very best use of mathematical models.

Today's climate models account for only a handful of the hundreds of variables that are known to impact climate, and the values inserted for the variables they do use are little more than guesses."

Dear JBowyer,

Well lookie here, Tony Abbott (obviously concerned about his seat) has now decided "“I’m not calling for us to pull out [of Paris] … We’ve got a new Prime Minister and a new energy minister."

A late conversion or a lying piece of garbage prepared to say or do anything to get reelected?

Mmmm.

Steele Baby I got you well and truly skewered! The real world is going on with coal. Probably next will be smaller, neater nuclear reactors and who knows what? Certainly not solar or wind who have both needed massive subsidies whilst always promising pie in the sky tomorrow.
Abbott is a shrewd political man who said we don't need to pull out of Paris? Just to blunt some of the hatred that gets directed at him daily. When Europe and the UK hit the recession they have to have watch them re-evaluate their objections to fracking and coal.
Strangely none of you futurists comment on the UK using US wood pellets to generate electricity because it is apparently carbon neutral? Please discuss lol!

Wonderful wordsmith.
Unfortunately, if you have bred, your are displaying symptoms of hypocrisy of the highest order.

If anyone had actually checked the science, this whole global warming crisis would never have taken place in the first place.

The unfortunate consequence is that so much money is now available for 'mitigating' it that few are interested in ascertaining the truth, and some are actually engaged in hiding it or even distorting basic facts, to support a pre-determined agenda. Sad.

What are the basic facts?

1. Carbon dioxide (the principle gas involved) is only a minor greenhouse gas, operating effectively over a very small spectrum centered on the 14.9 um wavelength. This wavelength is also partially covered by the major greenhouse gas, water vapour. Once this spectrum is saturated, the addition of more greenhouse gas effectively adds no futher warming effect.

2. Man's total contribution to the global increase in carbon dioxide is estimated by the IPCC at 4.3% (IPCC AR5). The increase in this gas from natural sources (ie, the Oceans and Terrestrial souces)) is stated by them to be 95.7%.

3. Water vapour operates over a much larger spectrum range and is present in much higher concentrations. (eg @ 3%, (range ,<1% - ~6%) water vapour is present at over 73 times the concentration of carbon dioxide).

4. There is no way carbon dioxide can perform the dominating function claimed for it by the IPCC and its supporters, and there is not one piece of unequovical empirical evidence that supports this contention.

5. Carbon dioxide on the other hand is absolutely vital, in fact fundamental, for all life on earth as we know it. More of it is currently greening the Earth, crucial to support the continuing increase in the world's population.

We need to think clearly and rationally about this issue.

Ian McClintock should be commended for clearly presenting the basic facts.

It is one more confirmation of the climate change deception that is being forced on us by dishonest politicians, at enormous cost to the Australian economy -- certainly acting contrary to the national interest.