Tony Abbott Has No Intention Of Reaching His Flimsy Emissions Target

The combination of policies being deployed by the government will not help them achieve even the weak target announced today, writes Ben Eltham in the Leftist "New Matilda".  I suspect Ben is right about that. 

And Ben spells out well that Abbott is acting only on political pressure.

Where Ben is a big laugh, however, is that he does not seem to know about the "pause", which even Warmist scientists acknowledge.  Ben speaks of the "terrifying momentum of climate change" when it has in fact no momentum at all.  The only terrestrial temperature changes of the last 18 years have been in hundredths of one degree Celsius, changes which are not even statistically significant, meaning that from a scientific viewpoint, they do not exist. 

I suspect that Ben is good at detecting crookedness in Abbott because he is such a big crook himself.  "Terrifying momentum of climate change" does not even do Warmist scientists justice. It is an outright lie. Ben is talking though his anus

The news that the Abbott government has settled on an emissions reduction target for Australia out to 2030 heralds a new turn in climate politics in this country.

The target, announced by Prime Minister Tony Abbott today, is a 26 per cent reduction on 2030 levels compared to 2005. It would put Australia at the back of the international pack – offering less than Canada, the United States or Europe. Only Japan is offering a smaller target.

On the one hand, of course, this target is manifestly inadequate. A modest decrease in carbon pollution is not nearly enough to arrest the terrifying momentum of climate change. As glaciers and ice-caps melt and bushfires intensify, the world is running out of time to stop global warming before it runs away with a liveable climate.

Rapid and deep cuts to emissions are the only practical and ethical policy. The non-political Climate Change Authority recommended a 40-60 per cent cut by 2030, based on the available science.

On the other hand, it’s amazing the Abbott government committed to an emissions target at all. This is the government that has loudly proclaimed its undying love of fossilised carbon, a government hell-bent on burning as many dead dinosaurs as it can dig from the soil. This is also the government that contains many avowed climate sceptics, and which campaigned so successfully against the Labor Party on climate at the last election.

The 26 per cent figure appears to have been massaged with a view to party unity. The government was today openly briefing press gallery journalists that climate sceptics in the party were consulted about it, and “could live” with the target. That in itself tells you quite a lot about the way this government conducts climate policy.

Say what you like about the snail’s pace of international action on climate, there is no doubt that Australia has been dragged to this position by international pressure.

Australia under the Coalition has stayed inside the Kyoto protocol, and that means we need to commit to a new emissions reductions target in the run up to this year’s climate talks in Paris.

In the media conference today, Prime Minister Abbott was at great pains to point out that Australia’s emissions reduction target was “smack bang in the middle” of rich world emissions targets. You’d have to say that, without this international pressure, Australia under the Coalition would not be formally committed to reducing emissions at all.

The government claims Australia will make the largest per capita reductions of the rich industrialised countries. That’s a fudge to begin with: it highlights just how pollution-prone our economy currently is. Countries in Europe and even in Asia start well ahead of us when it comes to their relative emissions intensity. Australia has so far to travel because we are already so dirty.

Never mind the target – can the government actually deliver? No.

The government plans to meet the 2030 target essentially on a wing and a prayer.

https://newmatilda.com//2015/08/11/tony-abbott-has-no-intention-reaching-his-flimsy-emissions-target