Sceptics - a Bex and a good lie down

As the debates continue to play out in the Australian political scene over climate change (the Liberal Party threatens to implode), the role of the re-born sceptics within the Federal Opposition and beyond is a key element.

The hacking of the CRU emails recently - to the frenzy of sites like Climate Depot and Andrew Bolt's blog - has simply given more information to a disturbing trend that I have noticed for some time (and George Monbiot posted on recently). When we began our climate program (Cities for Climate Protection) over a decade ago with local governments in Australia, we regularly had debates on the climate science: mainly because people had simply not heard the arguments before.

At some point - perhaps five years ago - this stopped. We quickly moved from agreement for the need to do something to the practicalities of action - how could we effectively save energy, what options existed to manage waste more cleverly and how could we plan our transport systems more effectively. Councils responded and have saved over 18 million tonnes of CO2 over that period of time.

But in the last few years there has been a renewed debate in Town Halls - generally there will be one person at least in the Council who thinks that climate change is a "scam". Note, we are not talking about a debate here. A debate is something that we want to continue - and the debate, in any public policy formulation, will always include cost-benefit discussions (pay back periods for new technologies), alternative priorities (investing in other budget needs), different political perspectives (size of government etc) and so on.

The accusation of a "scam" is not part of a debate - it is on the same level (sadly) as the 9/11 coverup or conspiracy theories on other major events over the past few decades. It is that somehow scientists, politicians and other decision-makers have either been duped collectively or agreed consciously to promote something false. Many many people. All around the world.

In liberal democracies, we need to maintain the difficult tension of ensuring debate continues without the "scam" politics of conspiracy. It is a small minority view (though magnified by the internet) and - in the end - if that one person in the Town Hall insists it is all a "scam", we need to just press on and hope that they have a Bex and a good lie down...

Where next for Australia?

Australia is a good case study for the way in which climate change policy is reaching a major decision point brought on by COP 15. After a decade of difficulty at a national level - with a pragmatic Prime Minister eventually supporting an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) - the Rudd Labor government is forcing a vote in Parliament on a proposed Bill this week.

And all hell has broken loose!

The rural-based conservative National Party doesn't want to vote for it (even though it is likely that agriculture will be excluded forever from the scheme) and their coalition partners, the Liberal Party, are close to splitting on the issue because of the resurgence of climate sceptics. The Greens don't think it goes far enough, rewards current "polluters" and are therefore pushing that it "locks in failure".

The Rudd government has stated that it wants the ETS to be passed before COP 15 - the rationale is that this will give Australia greater potential for influence and encourage others to deal. But the added chaos in the opposition ranks is a pretty nice bonus as well.

Copenhagen dreaming

So it is confirmed that both Michelle and I will be attending COP 15 at Copenhagen in a few weeks. Michelle will be leading a delegation of US Mayors on behalf of ICLEI-USO and I will be representing the United Cities and Local Governments in Asia Pacific (UCLG-ASPAC). Both of us will be taking the opportunity to talk to a lot of our colleagues that we have worked with for many years both at previous COPs and other events.

This is a little comforting given that I recently broke my fibula and am limping around on a cast and crutches. The doctor assures me that all will be well for the trip...