Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia is no longer PM, as he’s ousted by former communications minister Malcolm Turnbull. While CNN reports this is primarily about leadership style and economics, this will also have an impact on Australia’s climate change policy. He did not agree with Mr. Abbott’s policies, as enunciated in a blog post, reproduced by The Sydney Morning Herald (the original is no longer available, although Turnbull’s blog remains here), subtly entitled, “Abbott’s climate change policy is bullshit“:
… as we are being blunt, the fact is that Tony and the people who put him in his job do not want to do anything about climate change. They do not believe in human caused global warming. As Tony observed on one occasion “climate change is crap” or if you consider his mentor, Senator Minchin, the world is not warming, its cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world. Now politics is about conviction and a commitment to carry out those convictions. The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is “crap” and you don’t need to do anything about it.
The Guardian reports,
He has spoken out in defence of climate scientists, whose work has been derided by many of his colleagues and even by Maurice Newman, the chairman of Abbott’s business advisory council, who believes the world may have entered a cooling phase.
“It is undoubtedly correct that there has been a very effective campaign against the science of climate change by those opposed to taking action to cut emissions, many because it does not suit their own financial interests, and this has played into the carbon tax debate,” Turnbull said in a speech in 2011.
“Normally, in our consideration of scientific issues, we rely on expert advice [and] agencies like CSIRO or the Australian Academy of Science, are listened to with respect. Yet on this issue there appears to be a licence to reject our best scientists both here and abroad and rely instead on much less reliable views.”
So this sounds like a leader with some respect for the science of climate change. But what sort of guy is Mr. Turnbull? The Guardian also covers this question:
A few weeks after Brendan Nelson beat him for the dog-days job of leading a demoralised Liberal Party after its 2007 election loss, Malcolm Turnbull called Nelson’s new chief of staff Peter Hendy.
“Turnbull told me that my job was to get Brendan to resign in the next few weeks because Brendan was hopeless and he would damage the Liberal brand so much that by the time he, Turnbull, took over, the next election would no longer be winnable,” Hendy told me in 2009. “He called Nelson personally with the same message.”
Turnbull was in such a tearing hurry to fulfill his unshakeable belief that he should lead the Liberals, and the nation, that first term opposition did not daunt him, nor party room defeat, nor the normal parameters of self awareness.
He’s been leader of the Liberal Party before, so he has some experience in that department. Now to see how Australia’s energy and climate change policies change.
