Facts on Climate Change & Energy

Available at Quadrant Online is “Climate facts Labor overlooked”, by Bob Carter, Alan Moran & David Evans:

An internal strategy paper has been provided to Labor MPs for use in the promotion of the Government’s proposed new carbon dioxide tax.
We offer critiques of the two most substantive parts of that paper, namely “Carbon Price” and “Climate Impact on Australia”.  [...]
The claims in the strategy paper that we have to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions immediately or dangerous warming will occur, with manifold dramatic environmental consequences, are based on faulty computer models that are unchanged in basic character from those that have proved to be inaccurate since 1988.  [...]
In the real world, over the last ten years, and despite a 5% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide:

Global temperature has declined slightly (Liljegren, 2011)
Ocean heat content has declined slightly (Knox & Douglass, 2011); and
Global sea-level rise has remained stable, with no net acceleration (Houston & Dean, 2011)

A PDF [2.9 MB] of the document, “Labor’s Tax Stategy”, is available hence, or JPEGs of the individual pages (minus the title page) can be viewed here.

UPDATE:  See “Combet: 10 big errors”, by Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks & Bill Kininmonth; and see also “Combet: unbalanced advice”, by the same authors, at Quadrant Online:

In a speech at the National Press Club on April 13th, Climate Minister Combet revealed again that he is receiving unbalanced scientific advice, and that his understanding of the problem of hypothetical dangerous global warming is inadequate.  His predecessor, Senator Penny Wong, exemplified the same weaknesses and so does the government.  [...]

It is time that the Australian government shook itself free from the baleful influence of the IPCC by, first, commissioning a review by fully independent scientists as to the relative risks of natural and hypothetical human-caused climate change; and, second, by adopting a cost-effective national climate policy of preparation and adaptation.

UPDATE II:  See “Wrong advice, wrong policy”, by Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks, Bill Kininmonth & Des Moore, at Quadrant Online:

Politically committed to introducing a new carbon dioxide tax, the government campaign to condition public acceptance of it has moved into overdrive over the last few months.  Steps taken since the election include the establishment of a parliamentary Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, a Climate Commission chaired by Professor Tim Flannery and an address at the National Press Club by Climate Minister Combet.

These and other conduits of government influence are transmitting messages based on the same unaudited, partial IPCC advice that has dominated global warming politics worldwide for the last 10 years.

Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an unelected, unaccountable (to Australian citizens) United Nations body made up of government officials, and its reports on climate change are authored by persons selected by the IPCC and supported by their respective governments.  [...]
Despite the ready public availability of our reports, and of similar analyses by other independent scientists that also demonstrate there is no justification for continued alarm about global warming, neither the government nor its scientific advisors have offered answers to the criticisms presented.  Meanwhile, the MPCC continues on its stately way, its members making major public policy decisions awhile that are based upon patently flawed and inadequate scientific advice.