Wong: Climate sceptics are all red herrings and quackery
********************************EXCERPT****************************************
PENNY WONG February 18, 2010
It is my pleasure to welcome you to Adelaide to this first national forum on coasts and climate change.
Late last year I released the first national assessment of the implications of climate change for Australia's coasts.
Today we begin the next step towards preparing for the impact of climate change on our coasts with the opening of this national forum.
But before I do, there are two issues in the current climate change debate that I would like to take head on: the outcome at Copenhagen and debates on the science of climate change.
Copenhagen
It's true that Copenhagen did not deliver the perfect outcome – but it is equally true that there is plenty to build on.
The reality is that the Copenhagen Accord is an important and welcome step toward an effective global agreement on climate change.
It saw, for the first time, leaders agree to hold any increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius.
For the first time, leaders of developed as well as developing countries agreed to take action, side by side, to deliver that objective.
For the first time, leaders agreed to a framework for a transparent system to track our progress, which is key to getting the environmental outcome the world needs.
And for the first time, leaders agreed on the finance necessary to support emissions reductions and adaptation in developing countries.
The world now has major emitters prepared to take action and to be accountable for it. The significance of this should not be overlooked or forgotten.
It's an important point - we haven't had this before. The Kyoto Protocol did not deliver this, as it only involved emissions obligations for developed countries.
The Accord is strongly supported by both developed and developing countries.
The Accord includes pledges to cut and limit emissions from countries representing around 80 per cent of global emissions and more than 85% of the global economy.
And while we would have liked to have gone further, perhaps the most disappointing outcome of Copenhagen is the way that some politicians – including those who want to lead this nation – have smugly exaggerated the shortcomings as a justification of their position to do nothing on climate change.
This approach completely ignores a very important fact that a strong global agreement is manifestly in Australia's own national interest.
And while we may be a year or so away from the agreement we do need and ultimately want, does that mean that each of us should drop the ball until then?
Doing so – that is to say deciding not to do anything - is a decision to increase the risk for future generations. This simply isn't responsible. What is responsible is to ask ourselves the simple question: what can each of us do to help tackle climate change?
Science
That is because the evidence points to climate change happening more quickly than we previously thought.
Given recent allegations you might be excused for thinking that climate change science has been completely discredited.
Remember the people who have been barrackers for policy failure at home and abroad are the same people who have been peddling misinformation and misleading information about the science of climate change.
There is, in fact, a certain similarity between debates about the impact carbon pollution is having on our planet, and earlier debates about the impact cigarette smoke has on our health.
It's not hard to imagine these barrackers for failure as the characters in the sequel to 'Thank you for smoking', which will be called: 'Thank you for polluting.'
Given how confused debates on the science have become, I think it is important to get some facts on the table.
And I don't just mean facts like that 2009 was the second hottest year on record in Australia and the fifth hottest globally, and that 2009 finished the hottest decade in recorded history.
I refer more to the series of breathless, scandalised claims implying that we have all been hoodwinked by climate scientists, who have manipulated evidence and published bare-faced lies as part of a vast conspiracy to de-industrialise the Western world.
Those hoodwinked would have to include the Pentagon and Margaret Thatcher.
The US Special Envoy on Climate Change, Todd Stern, characterised this recent trend as: