The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) 6 Nov 2013
2013 Annual GWPF Lecture London 5 November 2013
I thank Nigel Lawson and his colleagues for their invitation to be here to-night. When he asked me to deliver this lecture Lord Lawson said that I could talk about what I chose. I think that was not meant quite as literally as it might seem. I am sure he had in mind that I might share with you my views on the contemporary state of the debate on global warming, especially from an Australian perspective. That has special relevance; Australia has a new PM, and integral to his successful campaign was sustained opposition to a carbon tax.
Tony Abbott now has the great responsibility and honour of being PM of Australia because a little under four years ago he challenged what seemed to be a political consensus on global warming; won the leadership of his party by one vote; had it expressly confirm a change in its policy on the issue, and then confronted the incumbent government on global warming, with quite dramatic results, to which I will return shortly.
I chose the lecture’s title largely in reaction to the sanctimonious tone employed by so many of those who advocate quite substantial, and costly, responses to what they see as irrefutable evidence that the world’s climate faces catastrophe, against people who do not share their view. To them the cause has become a substitute religion.
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