Australia And Canada Form Climate Realist Alliance
Mark Kennedy
The political leaders of Canada and Australia declared on Monday they won’t take any action to battle climate change that harms their national economies and threatens jobs.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, made the statements following a meeting on Parliament Hill.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper both say there is no need for carbon pricing to combat climate change. Photo: Andrew Meares
Abbott, whose Liberal party came to power last fall on a conservative platform, publicly praised Harper for being an “exemplar” of “centre-right leadership” in the world.
Abbott’s government has come under criticism for its plan to cancel Australia’s carbon tax, while Harper has been criticized for failing to introduce regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada’s oil and gas sector.
Later this week, Abbott meets with U.S. President Barack Obama, who has vowed to make global warming a political priority and whose administration is proposing a 30-per-cent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 2030.
At a Monday news conference, Harper and Abbott both said they welcomed Obama’s plan. Abbott said he plans to take similar action, and Harper boasted that Canada is already ahead of the U.S. in imposing controls on the “electricity sector.”
But both leaders stressed that they won’t be pushed into taking steps on climate change they deem unwise.
“It’s not that we don’t seek to deal with climate change,” said Harper. “But we seek to deal with it in a way that will protect and enhance our ability to create jobs and growth. Not destroy jobs and growth in our countries.”
Harper said that no country is going to undertake actions on climate change — “no matter what they say” — that will “deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country.
“We are just a little more frank about that.”
Abbott said climate change is a “significant problem” but he said it is not the “most important problem the world faces.
“We should do what we reasonably can to limit emissions and avoid climate change, man-made climate change,” said Abbott.
“But we shouldn’t clobber the economy. That’s why I’ve always been against a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme — because it harms our economy without necessarily helping the environment.”
Abbott’s two-day trip to Ottawa was his first since becoming prime minister and it quickly became evident he is on the same political page as Harper. They are both conservative politicians who espouse the need to balance the budget, cut taxes, and focus on international trade.
Just as Harper once turned to former Australian prime John Howard for political guidance, Abbott is now turning to his Canadian counterpart as a model.
Australia, Canada To ‘Forge Alliance’ To Counter Obama’s Green Agenda
International Business Times, 10 June 2014
Reissa Su
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking an alliance among “like-minded” nations to thwart efforts to introduce carbon pricing and American President Barack Obama’s move to push climate change through global forums like G20.
Abbott, who is visiting Canada for talks with the country’s prime minister and his close friend Stephen Harper, said efforts are underway to form a new “center-right” alliance under the leadership of Canada, UK, Australia, India and New Zealand.
According to reports, the five Commonwealth nations have “center-right” leaning governments but the closeness between Harper and Abbott is being regarded as the most significant alliance. The combination will attempt to move the pace of climate change action via policies like emissions trading or carbon tax.
Reports said the alliance is a “calculated attempt” to push back on what both Mr Abbott and Mr Harper sees as a “left-liberal agenda” to raise taxes and “unwise” plans to address the issue of global warming.
But Abbott said in a media conference that he thought climate change is a significant problem. But it’s not the “only problem” the world faces. He said the problem remains significant and countries should act based on what they think is best to reduce carbon emissions.
The prime minister said he was “encouraged” that Obama is looking at what he regards as a direct action measure to curb emissions and found it similar to what he proposes in Australia.
He said policies to address climate change should not hurt the economy. Harper agreed with the statement and said they want to deal with climate change “in a way that enhances our ability to create jobs and growth.”
Both leaders may not yield to pressure from the U.S. should Mr Obama revive the issue of climate change ahead of the annual climate summit.
In the previous week, Obama had flagged regulatory changes to influence U.S. states to address global warming by adopting “aggressive market interventions.” as decided to take climate change off G20 agenda. In December, Australia became the chair of G20, which is a group composed of 20 countries having the biggest economies in the world.
Britain Should Join Commonwealth Alliance Against ‘Unhealthy’ Climate Policy, Says Australian PM
The Daily Telegraph, 10 June 2014
Jonathan Pearlman
Tony Abbott pushes for “conservative alliance” between Britain, Australia, Canada and India to limit “unwise” climate change action and resist carbon pricing
Mr Abbott called for limited action on climate change that would not ‘clobber the economy’
“Like-minded” countries such as Britain, Canada and India should form a conservative alliance with Australia to limit action on climate change and to prevent the introduction of carbon pricing, the country’s prime minister Tony Abbott has said.
Seeking to counter Barack Obama’s efforts for international action to reduce carbon emissions, Mr Abbott has reportedly sought to create a “combined front” with fellow Commonwealth nations that have conservative governments.
During a visit to Canada, Mr Abbott called for limited action on climate change that would not “clobber the economy”.
Like Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper, who withdrew his nation from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, Mr Abbott has dismantled his predecessor’s policies and moved to repeal Australia’s carbon tax. He is regarded as a climate change sceptic and once referred to global warming science as “absolute crap”, a comment which he later retracted.
Full story
h/t to Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF
PAT
Thanks for this quote from Washington Times
…Doug Randall, who co-authored the Pentagon report, said, “Even I’m surprised at how often it’s referred to…
Asked about his scenarios for the 2003-2010 period, Mr. Randall said in an interview: “The report was really looking at worst-case. And when you are looking at worst-case 10 years out, you are not trying to predict precisely what’s going to happen but instead trying to get people to understand what could happen to motivate strategic decision-making and wake people up. But whether the actual specifics came true, of course not. That never was the main intent.”…
It speaks to the heart of false climate science alarmism that is rampant to day .These alarmist climate science reports are meant to exaggerate and scare people. They do not highlight that these are worst case projections in the opening paragraph . These qualifications never make the headlines or press releases .The rational world does not plan for the future based on worst case scenarios. We might as well all quit living if this was the case . The problem is that politicians like the Democrats take these worst case situations and make public policies and actions as if they were true. They then fabricate entirely new falsehoods like carbon dioxide pollution scares on top of these worst case scenarios and you now have a firm government action thrust on the general public that is all pure fabrication of a worst case scenario that will never come about. Yet it comes from the highest administrative offices in the land
“3×2 says:
June 10, 2014 at 10:06 am
Apparently they will fire up their own local diesel generators, at great cost to the typical consumer, and save the economy (but not CO2 or any of the other sh*t these generators will exhaust).”
If anyone wants to see a real world example of how bad a situation like this gets on a large, city wide, scale look at Lagos in Nigeria. It’s exactly not what to do.
[rather: “what not to do”? .mod]
Ontarians are crossing the U.S.border to purchase goods and gasoline/diesel fuels as well.
Electric power sources are being built or in the planning process to supply electricity to the U.S.
Manitoba has a hydro project planned and so does Newfoundland to supply power to the U.S.
Ontario has the planned Naticoke HVDC Lake Erie connector to Pennsylvania to supply power to the U.S.
One has to remember that there has been wall to wall propaganda about global warming in Australia from media since before the Copenhagen meeting, and very little to the contrary. So Mr. Abbott has to tread carefully for political reasons since if there were to be an election tomorrow half the country would vote against him according to the opinion polls. Information such as there has been no significant increase in global temperatures for 17 years is not reported, just hyperbole about more fires and droughts and both the leaders of the Greens (Milne), and Labor (Shorten) believe in global warming, sorry climate change.
I didn’t know Britain has a carbon tax? Are you sure? It buys a lot from Europe for energy,
[trimmed. Inappropriate. .mod]
“bushbunny says:
June 11, 2014 at 6:32 pm”
Yes, a “carbon price” of GBP18/tonne. I understand annual automatic increases have been recantly halted due to volatility in the EU carbon markets.
Leo Geiger says:
June 10, 2014 at 8:06 am
It is something of a problem for Prime Minister Harper that British Columbia introduced a carbon tax five years ago (a revenue neutral one) and it did not destroy jobs and the economy in British Columbia. It remains difficult for the Conservatives to reconcile that reality with their rhetoric.
_____________________
Really now, a carbon tax has not destroyed jobs and the economy,…..Too funny, what about us working class people who now have to choose between gas/energy, eating and paying our rent? Prices have skyrocketed on everything… food, gas, elec., travel, goods.. etc. because of the carbon dioxide tax.
EVERYTHING,…. trickles down bro!
AND we will all work, LONGER, HARDER, STRESSFULLY .
I cant afford to own a home or run a car. I have to ride the bus 3 hours a day instead of 1 hour a day driving… 3 fuking buses… on top of my 10 hour work day, 6 days a week to pay for a made up faux tax on traveling to work, escalating energy costs for HVAC in our homes(in Canada) for more carbon(CO2) reduction scams and more university’s churning out environmentalists to the work force to control us with BS PHD’s making our lives a living hell..
Well as long as it doesn’t destroy jobs or the economy. LOL
Maybe I should get a horse or walk… oh wait I already walk 3 miles because bus service is not here to get me to work on time….and the dirty sticky bus I catch is late half the time …..and mass transit is the cure for all that ails the world dontcha know….
Thanks Andrew Weaver, Mike Mann, James Hansen, Maurice strong , Steven Schneider, David Suzuki, the UN, WWF, Greenpeace, sierra club.
Yeaa.. Thanks for taking my kids future earnings and the next generation and I’ll be working till I’m 80…. well…. if I don’t die first from running myself ragged trying to pay my bills.
What a great future!
Planebrad@ur momisugly 124 pm.
but must pay lip service to Obama in order to assure a strong US Navy presence in the southern Pacific.
Actually that should be the strong hand, because, “Mr. USA we won’t give you access to our ports” (I know a little late seeing what happened a few months ago with the marines moving in) but still Australia, Canada and NZ could and should play hard ball. Canada and Australia have an upper hand. Canada has the oil card and OZ and NZ has the Pacific access card.
Al Gore comments on the Obama/Abbott meeting.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/al-gore-mother-nature-has-louder-voice-than-tony-abbott-on-climate-20140612-zs4wx.html#ixzz34P6baLyt
Leo Geiger says:
June 10, 2014 at 8:06 am
It is something of a problem for Prime Minister Harper that British Columbia introduced a carbon tax five years ago (a revenue neutral one) and it did not destroy jobs and the economy in British Columbia. It remains difficult for the Conservatives to reconcile that reality with their rhetoric.
The carbon tax in BC has resulted in the highest gas prices in all of the country in Canada, “The revenue Neutral” may be believed by some, but not many.
Leo Geiger says:
June 10, 2014 at 8:06 am
It is something of a problem for Prime Minister Harper that British Columbia introduced a carbon tax five years ago (a revenue neutral one) and it did not destroy jobs and the economy in British Columbia. It remains difficult for the Conservatives to reconcile that reality with their rhetoric.
Perhaps you want to explain just how “neutral” your revenue neutral carbon tax really is? Perhaps the effects on the economy are not as neutral as you would like others to believe?
Well, Harper and Abbott are both accused of being fascists. We know PM Harper is and we know just who donated to PM Harper’s Alliance in 2002. There was also Harper’s Northern Foundation of 1989.
I can’t believe people see no wrong in, Harper giving Communist China control of Canada’s vast resources? Harper has approved the Northern Gateway for China’s benefit. Petro-China put in a bid to *help* build the Enbridge pipeline, no doubt with their own cheap labor.
Canada is being overrun with Chinese. China now wants their history and culture taught in Canada’s schools. Time to get out of Canada and leave this country to Harper and his Communist Chinese.
Leo Geiger says:
June 10, 2014 at 8:06 am
It is something of a problem for Prime Minister Harper that British Columbia introduced a carbon tax five years ago (a revenue neutral one) and it did not destroy jobs and the economy in British Columbia. It remains difficult for the Conservatives to reconcile that reality with their rhetoric.
RU mad? the economy here would be at least 10-20% better off without the carbon tax (which is ‘revenue neutral’ only in some pols’ rhetoric).