Malcolm Turnbull has urged people to speak out loudly on behalf of the science of climate change.
In a strong assault on sceptics such as Lord Christopher Monckton who attack the science, Mr Turnbull declared: ”We cannot afford to allow the science to become a partisan issue as it is in the United States.”
Believing in the science did not put a Liberal at odds with party policy, he stressed in a lecture in Sydney last night. He said there had been a very effective campaign against climate science by those opposed to cutting emissions, and this had affected the carbon tax debate.
But rejecting the science was ”like ignoring the advice of your doctor to give up smoking on the basis that somebody down the pub told you their uncle Ernie had lived to 95 and smoked like a train all his life”.
Mr Turnbull supports emissions trading but as a shadow minister is bound to support the opposition policy, which now opposes a carbon tax or trading system.
He said that the CSIRO and other science agencies were listened to with respect on most issues. ”Yet on this issue there appears to be a licence to reject our best scientists … and rely instead on much less reliable views.” he said. ”Those of us who do not believe the CSIRO is part of an international Green conspiracy to undermine Western civilisation should not be afraid to speak out and loudly, on behalf of the science.”
Mr Turnbull also said the argument that tackling carbon emissions in Australia was pointless until China and India acted was ‘‘incredibly embarrassing’’.
Mr Abbott this week said that aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 - his party’s own policy - was ‘‘crazy” when China was planning to increase its emissions.
But Mr Turnbull said Chinese emissions per person were a fifth of Australia’s and India’s less than a tenth.
“Our regular references to their emissions and ‘why should we do anything until the Chinese and the Indians do something’ - they find those references incredibly galling,” he said.
“How incredibly embarrassing statements like that are when you actually confront representatives of those countries.”
