Climate Scientists Attack Tony Abbott's 'Misleading' Speech to Global Warming Policy Foundation

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Australian climate scientists have hit back at their former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, describing his speech to a London think tank as being laced with distortions, falsehoods, misrepresentations, andย misdirection.

Abbott told the contrarian Global Warming Policy Foundationย (GWPF) that rising carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning could be โ€œbeneficialโ€ and compared acceptance of human-caused climate change toย religion.

The GWPF, founded by former Thatcher government treasurer Lord Nigel Lawson, consistently pushes positions on climate change that fall well outside the establishedย science.

The foundation, which claims to be bi-partisan but has accepted funding from many conservative figures, had declined requests from several specialist climate change media outlets to hear the Abbott lecture, claiming the speech โ€œwas not a mediaย event.โ€

Dr. Benjamin Henley, a University of Melbourne scientist specializing in ancient climate change and climate models, who read the transcript, said: โ€œIt is precarious territory for a politician to enter the scientific boxing ring, with only a bible of conspiracy theories and misconstrued talking points in hand. His speech is full of falsehoods, miscomprehension, and basicย untruths.โ€

Abbott lost the leadership of the conservative Liberal Party and, with it, the Prime Ministership, in September 2015 to the countryโ€™s current leader, Malcolmย Turnbull.

Abbottโ€™s public position on climate science has flip-flopped over the years.ย He once described the science as โ€œabsolute crapโ€ but during office, claimed to accept the basic facts and said he took the issueย seriously.

But he has also denied any link between rising temperatures and Australiaโ€™s bushfires, going against decades ofย research.

Abbott’s ‘Misleading’ย Claims

Professor Steven Sherwoodย of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Walesย refutedย Abbottโ€™s claim that climate models wereย wrong:

โ€œIn fact models are nearly dead-on in predicting overall global warming so far.ย They donโ€™t predict every detail, but were never expectedย to.โ€

At one point, Abbott said that because he had seen historical photographsย ofย Manly Beach near Sydney, he thoughtย reports of dangerous sea level rise โ€œfrom climate alarmistsโ€ might beย wrong.

Sherwood said of all the false claims, this was Abbottโ€™sย โ€œfunniest.โ€

โ€œA few photographs of the beach taken from his neighbourhood are a more accurate record of global sea-level than the global network of tide gauges and satellite altimeters!ย In a way, that says itย all.โ€

Professor Andrew Pitman, director of the Australian Research Councilโ€™s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said many of Abbottโ€™s claims were misleading orย irrelevant.

Abbott claimed that because the climate had changed in the ancient past before humans, this meant that current changes could also beย natural.

Pitman said: โ€œThis is misleading. The fact that climate changed in the past due to cause โ€˜Aโ€™ does not mean it can only change through causeย โ€˜A.’

โ€œThe fact is that it is changing now due to increasing CO2 on very rapid time scales. When climate changed in the past more slowly, it still caused mass extinctions. Not a happyย thought!โ€

Pitman said Abbottโ€™s suggestion that rising CO2 levels were helping plant growth was alsoย misleading.

He said while in some cases in controlled greenhouse environments โ€œyou seem to get bigger plantsโ€ with raised CO2 levels, โ€œthe nutrients in the plantย decline.โ€

โ€œSo you do not actually get more food,โ€ said Pitman, โ€œyou just get a bigger plant, so itโ€™s a myth that higher CO2 helps lift yields, in the sense that those yields reflectย food.โ€

Abbott spent time in his lecture attempting to undermine the scientific method on climate change, saying people who claimed the science was โ€œsettledโ€ were part of the โ€œthoughtย police.โ€

Henley added: โ€œBy implication, Abbott superstitiously questions the foundations of science, and in doing so, he questions the same scientific method which discovered wifi and penicillin, and proved the earth was notย flat.โ€

Australia and the Global Warming Policyย Foundation

Abbott is the third Australian to have delivered the GWPFโ€™s annualย lecture.

In 2013, another former Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard, delivered the annual lecture, declaring himself an โ€œagnostic on globalย warming.โ€

In 2011, the then-Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, produced a speech packed with red-herrings and cherry-picked talking points.ย Climate scientists described Pellโ€™s speech as โ€œdreadful,โ€ โ€œutter rubbish,โ€ and โ€œflawed.โ€ Pell was an early mentor toย Abbott.

Australian-born hedge fund billionaire Michael Hintze was reportedly in the audience at Abbottโ€™s lecture. Hintze, a major financial backer of the Conservative Party in the UK, was reportedly one of GWPFโ€™s earliest financial backers.

Main image: Tony Abbott speaking in Afghanistan in 2013. Credit: Flickr/US Embassy Kabul Afghanistanย (CC BYND 2.0)

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