Climate change denial was useful to Tony Abbott as long as it helped to bring down the Rudd-Gillard government. Now it’s a hindrance and he looks isolated at home and abroad. #auspol false #liblogic #environment In his renowned 1998 study of power and rationality, the Danish social scientist Bent Flyvbjerg concluded: “Power determines what counts as knowledge ... while it ignores or suppresses that knowledge which does not serve it.” During the 2013 election, Abbott walked a fine line, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with climate deniers. Then, on his first day as prime minister, he sacked the Climate Commission, the authoritative body set up by the previous Labor government to educate the public about climate change. A few months later, his mentor, former prime minister John Howard, spoke in support of climate change scepticism, saying he “instinctively feel(s) that some of the claims are exaggerated”. Howard baldly admitted that he only agreed to act on climate change and to consider an emissions trading scheme in 2006-7 for political purposes. Later, a climate denier, Maurice Newman, was appointed as Abbott’s chief business adviser. Dick Warburton, another denier, conducted a review into the Renewable Energy Target. And research by the University of Technology, Sydney found Abbott had help in the media: nearly all of the 36% of coverage in Australian newspapers in 2012 that did not accept the scientific consensus on global warming was published by the Murdoch press. The Abbott government then commenced its well-documented destruction of environment and climate change laws, policies and programs – the supposed salve for which was the so-called Direct Action policy. It was continuously criticised for being unworkable, expensive and worse, that it would encourage “rent-seeking” and create a “subsidy culture”. Then overseas support was sought for the Abbott government’s retrograde approach to the environment. The overreach became starkly obvious. In response to the failed attempt to delist 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian forests, the Portuguese delegation to the world heritage committee described the justifications presented as “to say the least, feeble” and slammed the potential move as “setting an unacceptable precedent”. Abbott might have thought it was electoral suicide committing to reintroduce a price on carbon more than two years out from an election, after the “toxic tax” line seemingly worked so successfully against Julia Gillard. Time and events have changed the debate. People have not noticed the claimed extra money in their pockets from the carbon price repeal. They have noticed that emissions are again increasing. Advocates have also made much of the fact that more than 24,000 people are employed in the renewable energy industry and around three million voters now have solar electricity generators on their roofs. There are two major climate change questions for Abbott in 2015. The first is how will he deal with resolving the impasse over the future of the RET. Billions of dollars of investment are at stake. Will Abbott continue to advocate for polluting big businesses or will he agree to a compromise with Labor? The second is the question of narrative. In response to the dramatic Sydney bushfires in October 2013, Abbott said “these fires are certainly not a function of climate change, they are just a function of life in Australia”. He then accused UN climate chief Christine Figueres of “talking through her hat” when she said (in general terms) bushfires are “absolutely” linked to climate change. To return to our Danish social scientist, Flyvbjerg notes that “in a democratic society, rational argument is one of the few forms of power the powerless still possess”. The voices of the powerless are now being amplified: climate change stories are now being told by the most powerful men and women in the world. As bushfires rage, floodwaters rise and cyclones blow over the next year, how will the prime minister modify his language and use of the facts?
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 01:40:44 +0000