Australian Government To Axe $5 Billion Of Climate Funding – Lydia Bradbury, Liberty Voice
The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years.
The fallout from the new government’s budget is still being seen in Australia, but it is already obvious that climate change is a loser when it comes to funding. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has long been skeptical of global warming and the science behind it, but with his new-found legislative power it seems as though he is looking at making that viewpoint into law. According to critics, there is no longer even the pretense of working towards limiting the effects of climate change as the government works to protect the interests of fossil fuel producers and businesses. Whether or not there is a real connection between big business interest and the new budget, Abbott and his cabinet have taken the axe to climate change research and are poised to fundamentally damage all scientific research in Australia in the process.
The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years. Additionally, the Emissions Reduction Fund which is meant to help lower greenhouse gas emissions in Australia is going to be reduced to only $1.14 billion. This was devastating news after Environment Minister Greg Hunt had gone on record promising to provide $2.55 billion to fund the program. Nevertheless, it is not only climate change programs that are feeling the pinch of the Abbott budget.
The Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, will have $111 million worth of funding slashed over the next four years, which will affect an uncertain number of programs and a loss of tenth of the CSIRO workforce.
The outlook is bleak from the standpoint of scientists and researchers in Australia, many of whom will probably leave the country in order to find work elsewhere.
Read the entire story here: http://guardianlv.com/2014/05/climate-change-research-axed-in-australia/
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I don’t ever see reason to credit Lewandowsky with any good sense, but he did have the sense to flee Oz just before the deluge…… every CAGW worshipper there will be lookng with envy at Stephan’s good (or lucky) timing, and wondering, “how do I continue with this gravy boat in UK/Europe?”
Only 500 million. My God, how can they do any “research” with such little funding? /sarc
A guy like Mann, who proudly cheerleaded Marcott’s false-bladed hockey shtick, I wonder about how much cash is paid to graduate students as opposed to personal This Old House renovations. And does he also have a Saudi university Plan B, like Phil Jones invoked?:
http://mpc.kau.edu.sa/Pages-Prof-Philip-Jones.aspx
There is a long way to go for proposals to become reality.
The Australian Senate is not currently controlled by the Government in the House of Representatives. The Senate is a house of review. On present indications, many of the proposals will fail or if they pass, they will be modified in bargaining.
If the Senate obstructs too much, the government can call a double dissolution, a complete new election for both houses.
Today’s polling indicates that the government would do badly iin a DD. However, polls change and the defunding proposals are too new to have sunk in with voters.
These defunding proposals are a smaller part of proposed reforms and they do not swing the result. Voters are more concerned with a proposal that they pay a fee to visit a doctor, the accumulated fees being earmarked for a $20 billion investment fund to pay for increased medical research.
In a sense, on balance, the proposals do not reduce scientific funding so much as redirect it to priorities with more probability of returns in the future. Like, global warming has only a few basic questions to be answered, then there is little incentive to continue. But medical research is more open ended, with too many questions still to be answered.
The Opposition parties to date have simply played immature but populist games, mainly like repeating that PM Abbott promised before the election not to make some changes. They are correct, but unhelpful.
The whole topic needs several months to start to sink in and allow better understanding than now, particularly by the Opposition with its bloody-minded blocking intentions instead of constructive policy suggestions.
AU£500,000?
That still seems a bit high?
If the figures at the top are annual figures, then spending on climate science will be cut by around 5 billion a year. Massive cuts in climate change non-science are welcome, but I would hope that the money would be switched to real science, which creates all kinds of benefits. But I’m not entirely optimistic about that, though.
Chris
Steven Mosher says: May 18, 2014 at 9:12 pm
“Today 5B is spent on climate studies.”
AS said above, nothing like it, not in Australia. Out by at least an order of magnitude. The report above doesn’t say that.
Spoken like a true suckling, Stephen. I don’t object to the funding my government has spent on solar research, or weather satellites. But there must be a payoff for this research, in a real economic or social sense. The constant drumbeat of alarmism from climate science is harming our society, making fearful idiots of our young, and insufferable totalitarians of our academics. Funding needs to be scaled way back. Far fewer Ph.Ds should be the goal, far fewer people setting their lives work on a tack of becoming public teat suckers. We private taxpayers just can’t afford you. You don’t provide enough value.
Can Tony Abbot come to the UK and be our prime minister, please?
At least the great money waste of the AGW sink-hole will be drastically reduced. Combine this with the coming regulation changes, that will take the shackles off the economy, and you have a winning formula for economic recovery and prosperity. Now do the same in the U.S.
Steven Mosher says:
May 18, 2014 at 1:23 pm
It would be far better to keep the budget intact and then fund better science.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?
The academic science community has tolerated this silly nonsense for 10+ years, which is probably causing a rapid loss of credibility among the little people (i.e. taxpayers).
It’s easy to think of giving these witch doctors a second bite at the apple in the same way as giving your home security contract to the thief who stole your silverware.
Just like them Aussies to employ the “Galgafrinchian” razor to such a problem.
Douglas Adams to the rescue.
“Nick Stokes says:
May 19, 2014 at 2:41 am
Steven Mosher says: May 18, 2014 at 9:12 pm
“Today 5B is spent on climate studies.”
AS said above, nothing like it, not in Australia. Out by at least an order of magnitude. The report above doesn’t say that.”
You seem to claim that you know, care to back that up with some actual figures publically available?
Patrick says: May 21, 2014 at 3:56 am
“You seem to claim that you know, care to back that up with some actual figures publically available?”
I’d note that people are happy to bandy around figures like $5B with no evidence at all. But if I disoute it, it is I who have to dig out the data. That is how it usually is.
But OK. Here is a doc from a sceptic guy, who gives references. He has a table on p 5, where he tots up $800M. But that is padded. Half is carbon capture and storage, which is actually subsidising industry research – they are looking for commercial opportunities and the Gov’t backed them. It’s not climate science, and won’t be cut. Then he’s included 57M for CSIRO’s Energy Transformed flagship. This is about energy efficiency, but is the vehicle for CSIRO’s long standing coal and electricity generation research. Another 79M for “Marine and Climate” but that includes the Barrier Reef, fishing research etc.
Sorry, forgot the link. I’ll add a quote
“It is estimated that about $150 million of the {C’wlth] research funds are being spent directly on climate science i.e. analysing temperature records, looking at the behaviour of oceans, modelling to predict global warming and investigating how carbon dioxide is causing global warming.”