Is United Arab Emirates & international fossil fuel industry scheming about to turn UN COP28 into a crime against humanity?

Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber is a 50 year old Emirati politician with a undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering, a Master in Business Administration and a PhD in Business and Economics. 

His studies appear to have been funded by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) - a state-owned multinational corporation of which he is currently Director-General & Chief Executive Officer. ADNOC is considered one of the world's largest energy companies measured by both fossil fuel reserves and production.

Critics tend to characterise ADNOC under his guidance as a corporation which focuses on 'greenwashing' rather than genuine greenhouse gas emissions reduction/climate change mitigation.

Al Jaber is currently the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology.

He is also President of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) which is being hosted by oil-rich UAE and therein lies an immense conflict of interest which has the potential to fatally weaken the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

COP28 was convened for thirteen days with around 199 nations participating and concludes on Tuesday 12 December 2023. 

AlJazeera, 8 December 2023:

The head of OPEC has urged members to reject any COP28 agreement that “targets” fossil fuels, highlighting deep divisions as the UN climate conference in Dubai enters its final week.

A new draft of the final agreement published on Friday includes a range of options, from agreeing to a “phase out of fossil fuels in line with best available science”, to phasing out “unabated fossil fuels”, to including no language on them at all....

The nearly 200 nations gathered in Dubai are now expected to focus on the issue of fossil fuels in the hope of reaching a consensus before the gathering’s scheduled end......

The most vocal holdout to calls to end fossil fuels is Saudi Arabia, which like summit host United Arab Emirates, is a major oil producer.....

TheGuardian, 3 December 2023:

The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”.

The comments were “incredibly concerning” and “verging on climate denial”, scientists said, and they were at odds with the position of the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

Al Jaber made the comments in ill-tempered responses to questions from Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, during a live online event on 21 November. As well as running Cop28 in Dubai, Al Jaber is also the CEO of the United Arab Emirates’s state oil company, Adnoc, which many observers see as a serious conflict of interest.

More than 100 countries already support a phase-out of fossil fuels and whether the final Cop28 agreement calls for this or uses weaker language such as “phase-down” is one of the most fiercely fought issues at the summit and may be the key determinant of its success. Deep and rapid cuts are needed to bring fossil fuel emissions to zero and limit fast-worsening climate impacts.....

Guterres told Cop28 delegates on Friday: “The science is clear: The 1.5C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.”.......

Newsweek, 1 December 2023:

The annual United Nations climate summit started yesterday. We're up to the 28th edition: "COP28." Past UN summits have obviously failed us, but this is a new low. Everyone on Earth needs to know that the meeting has been overrun by fossil fuel executives, making it a sick, planet-destroying joke. There's no real hope of stopping catastrophic global heating until we fix this.

The primary cause of global heating is fossil fuels; and global heating is what's driving all the crazy heat, fire, smoke, storms, flooding, drought, crop yield losses, and ecosystem death that is intensifying everywhere as Earth breaks down. This is basic physics and it's merciless. If left unchecked, every year on average will be hotter than the last, and at some point—no one knows exactly when or how it will unfold—global heating will take down civilization as we know it. Billions of lives are at risk, and the damage to Earth's habitability will last for so long that it will be essentially permanent as far as humans are concerned.

Since fossil fuels are the cause, the only way out of this emergency is to ramp down and ultimately end the fossil fuel industry. Recycling and composting aren't bad things in and of themselves, but they will not stop global heating. The cause is fossil fuels. The only real solution is ending fossil fuels. If you want to help, and you should, forget recycling. Instead, fight the fossil fuel industry every way you can.

It's easy to imagine an alternate universe in which fossil fuel executives were like, "We already have more money than we know what to do with, so let's not destroy the planet." In this alternate universe, the fossil fuel industry uses its vast power and resources to accelerate humanity's transition to clean energy, so we can all have a planet to live on. Makes sense.

In reality of course, fossil fuel executives made the opposite choice: to spend billions to hire the best and brightest to spread disinformation and block action. Which is sad, and horrible, and nightmarish. They've been doing this for half a century. And they recently promised to keep doing it.

In 2021, six fossil fuel executives testified before congress. They were Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil; Michael Wirth, CEO of Chevron; David Lawler, CEO of BP America; Gretchen Watkins, president of Shell Oil; Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute; and Suzanne Clark, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. When asked in several instances by Congress if they would agree to stop spending to spread disinformation and block climate action, these fossil fuel executives refused. They clearly signaled to the world that they plan to blithely continue dishonestly destroying Earth's habitability for the sake of corporate greed. They are literal supervillains, stealing our future.

This year, 2023, is the hottest in recorded human history. This should surprise no one: global heating is driven inexorably by trending accumulation of fossil fuel carbon dioxide and methane emissions. In this hottest year in human history, the climate summit is being held in the United Arab Emirates and presided over by a fossil fuel chief executive named Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber. It's hard to imagine anything more cynical or more evil. And yet, things did get more cynical and more evil, with recent revelations that the U.A.E. has been abusing its host role to strike side deals to expand fossil fuels......

Read the full article by Dr. Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at:

https://www.newsweek.com/climate-summit-sick-joke-you-should-angry-afraid-opinion-1848719

The New York Times (Late Edition), 29 November 2023:

A leaked document has talking points for the president of the United Nations climate conference, who is an oil executive in the United Arab Emirates, to advance oil and gas deals.

As the host of global climate talks that begin this week, the United Arab Emirates is expected to play a central role in forging an agreement to move the world more rapidly away from coal, oil and gas.

But behind the scenes, the Emirates has sought to use its position as host to pursue a contradictory goal: to lobby on oil and gas deals around the world, according to an internal document made public by a whistle-blower.

In one example, the document offers guidance for Emirati climate officials to use meetings with Brazil's environment minister to enlist her help with a local petrochemical deal by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the Emirates' state-run oil and gas company, known as Adnoc.

Emirati officials should also inform their Chinese counterparts that Adnoc was "willing to jointly evaluate international LNG opportunities" in Mozambique, Canada and Australia, the document indicates. LNG stands for liquefied natural gas, which is a fossil fuel and a driver of global warming.

These and other details in the nearly 50-page document -- obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the BBC -- have cast a pall over the climate summit, which begins on Thursday. They are indications, experts said, that the U.A.E. is blurring the boundary between its powerful standing as host of the United Nations climate conference, and U.A.E.'s position as one of the world's largest oil and gas exporters.

"I can't believe it," António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, said at a news conference Monday. The U.A.E. had been "caught red-handed," Christiana Figueres, a former United Nations diplomat posted on X. Ms. Figueres led the negotiations that yielded the 2015 Paris Agreement, the pact among nations of the world to work to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"At this point we might as well meet inside an actual oil refinery," said Joseph Moeono-Kolio, lead adviser to the campaign for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, an advocacy network.

Members of Emirates' climate delegation didn't respond to requests for comment.....

Quotes of the Week

"... lies are fissiparous, like bacteria in laboratory cultures, and one soon becomes two, then four, then eight and 16."

[Senior Reporter Rick Morton, writing in The Saturday Paper, 2-8 December 2023]

"Australia is engaged in the most significant economic, industrial and social transformation – the transition to renewable energy. Unfortunately, the opposition, backed by its loyal media comrades, is doing its level best to complicate and undermine this effort with baseless assertions and misrepresentations, scaremongering about the costs of the transition and raising unfounded doubts about the reliability of power supply. This is clearly against our national interests."

[Former Liberal Party Leader John Hewson, writing in The Saturday Paper, 2-8 December 2023]

Left behind in a changing world, the federal Nationals struggle for relevance

The Federal Nationals and Relevance

On 24 October federal National parliamentarians finally agreed to the Government taking a net zero 2050 target to the Glasgow Climate Conference. This apparently difficult decision followed some weeks of farcical posturing and chest-thumping by some of the 21 Nationals who are representatives in the national parliament.

Elsewhere in the nation the 2050 net zero target was accepted as necessary without fuss. All states and territories, whatever the political party in power, endorsed this target and are working towards meeting it. In addition some states, including NSW, have committed to substantial cuts in emissions by 2030.

Australia’s Paris commitment of cuts of 26-28% by 2030 is widely seen by scientists as inadequate if warming is to be kept to less than 2.0°C. However, our Paris target will not be increased despite the urging of the UK and other allies, with the Prime Minister claiming he will not increase the 2030 target because he made a commitment about this to the Australian people. It is far more likely that he cannot increase the 2030 target because of the Nationals’ point blank refusal to endorse any 2030 increase. Presumably many of the Nationals– and particularly the climate change denialists in the party– feel that they have already taken more than enough action on climate change.

There are a number of surprising and seemingly illogical aspects of the federal Nationals’ heads-in-the-sand position on climate matters.

• They do not seem to be aware that the Australian community across the regions, as well as in the major cities, is becoming more concerned about climate change and wants more effective government action.

• They are also apparently unaware of how big business enterprises are working to reduce their climate risk and advocating more action from government. And the Business Council of Australia (in contrast to its pronouncements before the 2019 election) is supporting net zero by 2050 and wants the Government to increase its 2030 target to 46-50% below 2005 levels.

• The impacts of climate change are affecting rural people as well as city dwellers. The Nationals divisive arguments about urban people pushing climate action which will harm people in the regions ignores the reality that climate impacts (longer droughts, extreme weather events, increase in bushfire severity) are increasingly hurting regional people. In relation to Covid we were often told, “We are all in this together.” The same statement obviously applies to climate change.

• The belief that our fossil fuel exports can continue well into the future is delusional. Most, if not all, of our markets will be phasing out their fossil fuel use as they work to reduce their emissions. If the Nationals are so concerned about those currently employed in fossil fuel industries, they should be working on effective transition plans. But they will first have to accept that time is up for these industries.

• They have ignored the significance of changed views in rural industries which are supporting strong emission targets and farming industry climate action. This includes the National Farmers Federation as well as the climate activist group Farmers for Climate Action.

• The fact that they ignore the opportunities for jobs and the economic boosts that will result from new industries that will be developed in the regions as fossil fuels are phased out, highlights two factors underpinning the federal Nationals’ beliefs. The first is their obsession with coal and gas and the big interests that benefit from them. The second is the level of denial about the reality of anthropogenic climate change in the party.

As a result of being left behind in a changing world, the federal Nationals struggle for relevance.

- Leonie Blain

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email northcoastvoices at gmail dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration

Headline of the Week

 

“The frenetic fan dance of the fools tells us the Coalition has reached crunch time on climate” [The Guardian, 9 October 2021]

Large foreign investment funds have warned they could blacklist Australia and cut billions of dollars of investments in the country if the Morrison Government fails to join the rest of the world in committing to a net-zero 2050 greenhouse gas emissions target

 

Financial Review, 5 July 2021:

Large foreign investment funds have warned they could blacklist Australia and cut billions of dollars of investments in the country if the federal government fails to join the rest of the world in committing to a net-zero 2050 greenhouse gas emissions target.

The warning backs up concerns of the Reserve Bank of Australia that the economy is at risk from foreign investors withdrawing capital because of perceptions among global fund managers that the Morrison government is resisting strong action on climate change.

The $US1.4 trillion ($1.9 trillion) investment management firm, Invesco, said Australia’s climate change policies were an important consideration for its investments under its environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) rules.

Invesco’s UK-based Asian equities director, John Pellegry, told The Australian Financial Review that “among developed markets, Australia’s approach appears to be behind others”.

“This may impact our investments in the future if other parts of the investment universe are tackling the issues more effectively.

“An inadequate climate change policy could lead to the selling of Australian investments – for example if required by our clients or if necessary to adhere to stricter policies outside Australia – for example, EU [European Union] policies.

“A greater valuation discount would also be warranted for the additional risk of investing in companies with less growth prospects and subject to greater externality costs – such as carbon pricing – if behind the curve versus global competitors…...

RBA warns overseas markets are looking to Australia to decarbonise its production processes – including the est. 70% of product the agricultural sector exports

 The Guardian, 19 June 2021:

On Thursday morning, shortly after the resources minister, Keith Pitt, finished his “net zero by 2050: not on your nelly” sortie on the ABC, the governor of the reserve bank, Philip Lowe, touched down in Queensland Nationals country.

Lowe went to Toowoomba to deliver a keynote address at the Australian Farm Institute conference. The speech was principally about household debt, house prices and whether Australians could ever expect a pay rise. But during the questions that followed the presentation, the RBA governor was asked about decarbonisation in the agriculture sector.

Lowe told the conference he was often up late, participating in the international meetings that central bank governors participate in “and a very frequent question that comes up in those meetings is ‘what is Australian business doing to decarbonise?’”.

It is worth letting Lowe explain. “Many international investors are very focused on this issue and it’s particularly important for the agricultural sector because up to 70% of agricultural output in Australia gets exported – so you are relying on overseas markets, and increasingly overseas investors are asking about the carbon content of production, and that is a trend that is only going to continue,” the central bank governor said.

“So agriculture has tremendous opportunities here, but we need to find ways to disclose to global investors and global customers the decarbonisation strategy and how successfully we are doing that.

“It is a really important issue and it’s going to become more important.”

Lowe inhabits a universe where climate change is real, the science is settled, and global capital has already made its choice.

If you inhabit that world, there’s very little grey area. You can see that transformation is coming. You can see countries are now in a race to prosper in what Scott Morrison now likes to call the “new energy economy”.

That race is only intensifying.

Over the past couple of months, the International Energy Agency has said fossil fuel expansion must end now if the planet is to address the climate crisis; there has been a G7 declaration (with Morrison in attendance) that public financing of unabated coal-fired power must stop this year and a pledge that net zero emissions must be achieved by 2050 “at the latest”; Joe Biden, Yoshihide Suga and Justin Trudeau have pledged much deeper cuts in emissions by 2030; and Boris Johnson says climate action is Britain’s top priority and the UK will deliver a 78% emissions cut by 2035 compared with 1990.

In which the Nationals defend the mining industry against a dreaded national “zero emissions” policy being established

The Guardian, 17 June 2021:

The resources minister, Keith Pitt, believes the National party would be ‘unsupportive’ of any commitment to net zero emissions. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

The resources minister, Keith Pitt, has fired a warning shot at Scott Morrison, declaring he cannot adopt a policy of net zero emissions by 2050 without the backing of the Nationals.

Morrison has been trying to telegraph a pivot on climate policy since the election of Joe Biden as the US president, signalling Australia wants to achieve net zero as soon as possible and “preferably” by 2050.

The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, wants Australia to unveil more ambitious commitments before the UN’s climate change summit in Glasgow in November, and he maximised Morrison’s comments in London this week by saying Australia had already “declared for net zero”.

Morrison is facing pressure from metropolitan Liberals to make the mid-century commitment, as well as sustained pressure from his global peers to do more to reduce emissions sooner.

The Australian prime minister was at the G7 summit in Cornwall last weekend as leaders committed “to ambitious and accelerated efforts to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and by 2050 at the latest, recognising the importance of significant action this decade”.

But a number of National party figures have been signalling for months they are not on board with Morrison’s climate change shift.

Pitt’s clear public warning shot on Thursday, in the wake of the G7 commitments and Johnson’s quip in London, is significant because the Queensland National is a member of the cabinet.

The resources minister said Australia’s climate policy – currently devoid of an official mid-century commitment – had not changed.

“We have not committed to net zero by 2050,” Pitt told the ABC. “That would require the agreement of the Nationals and that agreement has not been reached or sought.”

Asked for his own view, Pitt said: “It is all about the cost and who is paying.”

He said committing to net zero emissions by 2050 would “absolutely cause damage in regional communities” given those communities were reliant on export income from fossil fuels…….

Cartoons of the Week

 

Cathy Wilcox

Matt Golding

Has Morrison finally lost all control of the many political crazies within his government?

The list of unreliable and erratic members of the Morrison Coalition Government contains some memorable names famous for climate change denial, conspiracy theories or both - former Nationals Leader & former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, current Nationals Leader & Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, Nationals MP for Dawson George Christensen, outgoing Liberal MP for Menzies Kevin Andrews, Queensland Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, Queensland LNP Senator Gerard Rennick, NSW Liberal Senator Jim Molan and Liberal MP for Hughes Craig Kelly, to name a few.

Nationwide arson or exploding horse manure are a cause of mega bushfires in Australia, there was a plot by the Bureau of Meteorology to rewrite historical weather records, the Sun or God or a higher authority is the principle reason for the global climate changing, the "Wuhan flu" is not as bad as 'they' would like you to believe, the UN & most of the world's scientists are lying about climate change, conservative politicians are the victims of cancel culture - these are just a few of the wild opinions which came from the mouths of members of Morrison's government.

@Bishop64

On 2 February 2021 mainstream media journalists began to report that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had that day spoken by phone with Craig Kelly (left) and requested that he desist from spreading false and misleading information about treatment and possible cures for COVID-19 infection.

However, it now appears that Morrison did not speak with Kelly on Tuesday, 2 February. 

It wasn’t until after a very public confrontation between Labor’s Tanya Plibersek and Craig Kelly that Morrison did speak actually speak with him.

Morrison’s seeming reluctance had some basis in historical fact. When faced with possible loss of pre-selection in December 2018 it is understood that Kelly threatened to go to the cross benches and bring down the government.

As Morrison only holds federal government with a slim majority and, as rumour has it, is considering calling a federal election this year, it would be risky to discipline an MP who might carry through on that old threat.

Morrison indicated the half-measures approach taken towards Craig Kelly on 3 February 2021……

Australian Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, excerpt, 3 February 2021:

STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE COVID-19

Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister and Minister for the Public Service) (15:19):

Mr Speaker, I respect the rulings that you've made in relation to matters that have been raised today by the opposition. But, on indulgence, I'll just say the following about matters that have been addressed here today. A key principle of the successful response of our government, and the state and territory governments with whom I work, to the pandemic—a principle that I have applied with the chairing of the federal cabinet, the National Security Committee of Cabinet and the national cabinet—has been respect for the expert medical advice that has guided our response and the institutions that have the responsibility under our system for providing that advice.

It is true that views expressed by the member for Hughes do not align with my views or the advice that has been provided to me by the Chief Medical Officer. Earlier today, the member for Hughes and I discussed these matters, and I made it very clear that that was the view of me, as Prime Minister, and, of course, the view of the government. Vaccination is critical. It is our primary responsibility this year as we continue to respond to the pandemic. I welcome the statement, which I table, that was issued by the member for Hughes following our meeting. Our job is to get on with the job of the vaccine. The Therapeutic Goods Administration is the authoritative body not just in this country; it is respected around the world. So I can say to Australians—indeed,

for the same reason that I and members of this place will take our own children and our own parents to get that all-important vaccine—that our Therapeutic Goods Administration and the medical advice that guides my government's policy on the pandemic is the best in the world.

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Leader of the Opposition) (15:22): I welcome the belated statements of the Prime Minister in distancing himself from the comments of the member for Hughes. The comments of the member for Hughes have been dangerous—

An honourable member: Which ones!

Mr ALBANESE: We have a limited time on indulgence! But, in particular, it was the comments with regard to health, the use of hydroxychloroquine and the use of other drugs that have not been in accordance with the advice of the TGA or the advice of the Chief Medical Officer. Those have been of great concern. It is something

that we on this side of the House have raised—particularly the former shadow minister for health, the current shadow minister for health and myself as leader—for a period of many months.

The challenge of the pandemic requires us to absolutely have faith and confidence in our institutions. We on this side—as the Prime Minister has said himself; I know the minister for health has said it a number of times as well—have faith in and we should be very proud of the role that the TGA plays in this country. As we respond to this crisis, it is absolutely vital that all of us who have the privilege of being in leadership positions show leadership in the information which we put forward to the community. We've said throughout this crisis, 'We're all

in this together.' It needs to be more than a slogan; it needs to be a method of action as well. And that requires responsible leadership from every parliamentarian.

I hope that today sees an end to the information, or disinformation, from the member for Hughes. I haven't had the opportunity to see the statement that was just tabled by the Prime Minister.

On 4 December 2021 Craig Kelly’s Facebook account still carried posts containing false and misleading information about treatment and possible cures for COVID-19 infection. The last ones being posted in the early morning hours of 3 February 2021.

BACKGROUND

University of Newcastle, 3 February 2021:

In response to debate around COVID-19 treatment

A media statement in response to the debate surrounding COVID-19 treatment.

Please attribute comments to Professor Alex Zelinsky AO, Vice-Chancellor:

The University of Newcastle is committed to contributing to the response to COVID-19 and we support peer reviewed science-based decision making as we enter this next phase of the pandemic management, in which vaccination plays an important role.

Rigorous peer reviewed research evidence must remain a key mechanism to guide major policy and public health responses. This is the framework that Australian leaders have used to manage our pandemic response to date and the success of this approach is evident.

As a world-class research institute, we encourage and promote innovation in research that is underpinned by rigorous scientific principles. Our researchers are expected to adhere to strict scientific standards in providing opinions on matters of public interest.

While the University always respects freedom of speech, Robert Clancy is not speaking on behalf of the University of Newcastle when offering his opinion on this issue. The University has not funded his research since 2009 and he retired in 2013. The University does not consider Robert Clancy a subject matter expert on COVID-19.

Scott Morrison hauled Craig Kelly into his office today for a talking to in case the PM forgot to take his phone off mute yesterday when he called him for the same reason.

— Peter van Onselen (@vanOnselenP) February 3, 2021

 

#CraigKelly at 3.26pm yesterday after #questiontime. ⁦@10NewsFirst⁩
Q: “Has the PM had any communication with you at all, through any means, to tell you to rein in your comments on COVID19 science?”
KELLY: “No.”#auspol pic.twitter.com/Gzp7pKEMg2

— Hugh Riminton (@hughriminton) February 2, 2021

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 February 2021:

Every now and then a politician comes around with views so "crackpot" - the word used by the Australian Medical Association president to describe MP Craig Kelly's interesting COVID opinions - that you have to ask: how the hell is this guy in Parliament?

With the eager assistance of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, that's how!

Kelly, member for the southern Sydney seat of Hughes, has long tangoed with the more marginal opinion-holes of the internet, ranging from climate change "scepticism", to his assertion that coral islands float.

Kelly is also an expert on foreign policy. On the 298 people killed aboard flight MH17, shot down by the Russians, he told Sky News in 2018, "If some of the things that Russia has gotten away with in the past has to be slightly looked over, well I'm sorry, that's the price that we have to pay sometimes to have good relations going forward."

Kelly shared false reports claiming the violent insurrection at the US Capitol building in January was organised by left-wing Antifa protesters, and in 2018 he travelled to Azerbaijan, which has been ruled by the same family since the end of Soviet occupation, to declare its election a "coherent, democratic process". He was on the ground for 48 hours.

Everybody has one of those uncles, right? Well, the Liberal Party is no different, and up until now, Uncle Craig has been tolerated with the electoral equivalent of indulgent chuckles.

That Kelly is a member of the Coalition's right-wing conservative faction has a lot to do with his ongoing survival.

It is a brave Liberal Prime Minister who sets off those hounds. Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull both supported Kelly's preselection, despite attempts from the moderates to knock him off.

Then in 2018, Morrison made it clear Kelly was to be protected from a preselection challenge, despite (or perhaps because of) Kelly's support for Peter Dutton in the leadership vote following Turnbull's ousting.

But that decision is looking less than clever now Kelly's misleading views on the pandemic are becoming a public relations headache.

Kelly uses social media to push his theories, and his Facebook page has large levels of engagement. He has also appeared on the podcast of chef-turned-conspiracy-space-cadet Pete Evans.

Kelly has expressed scepticism about the COVID vaccine, he pushes unproven drug treatments, including one that is meant for head lice, and says making children wear masks is akin to "child abuse".

That no child is required to wear a mask is a technicality unmentioned on his posts.

Medical experts have expressed horror at such misinformation being spread by a member of the government. Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has politely said Kelly's views are "not scientifically based".

Kelly claims he is a victim of "cancel culture", but he gets an awful lot of air time.

He is a regular guest on Sky News, he has his Facebook page, plenty of media coverage, and there is also the forum of Parliament, which amounts to a national stage where speakers enjoy parliamentary privilege.

Besides, the harsh arithmetic of politics means that the Prime Minister, who sits on a one-seat margin, cannot cancel Kelly.

He is also not Kelly's boss. The people of Hughes are. Those voters include Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek's mum.

Yesterday morning, Plibersek confronted Kelly in the corridor in Parliament House.

"My mum lives in your electorate and I don't want her exposed to people who are not going to be vaccinated because of these crazy conspiracy theories that you're spreading," Ms Plibersek said.

The photographs of the exchange told the story. Plibersek's gestures are a gallery of emotions - the finger point of frustration, the face palm of incredulity, the eye roll of exasperation.

Climate change denier Ian Plimer in the news again

YouTube GWPF video snapshot

Former mining geologist Ian Plimer (left) is nothing if not persistent. 

North Coast Voices has been noting his biased, inaccurate & frequently irrational opinions since December 2008.


This was the fall-out from one of his articles published nine months ago.

The Guardian, 24 July 2020:

An op-ed by Prof Ian Plimer in the Australian, which was condemned as blatantly false by climate scientists, has been found to have breached standards by the Australian Press Council. In November, his column titled “Let’s not pollute minds with carbon fears” argued that there “are no carbon emissions. If there were, we could not see because most carbon is black. Such terms are deliberately misleading, as are many claims.”

The article also referred to the “fraudulent changing of past weather records” and “unsubstantiated claims polar ice is melting”, as well as “the ignoring of data that shows Pacific islands and the Maldives are growing rather than being inundated”.

Despite a chorus of criticism at the time, the former editor John Lehmann defended Plimer’s article, saying “his voice is one of many which are important in the mix”.

In a lengthy adjudication the Oz was forced to publish on page two on Friday, the press council said the article contained inaccurate and misleading material in its claims that the Bureau of Meteorology had fraudulently changed weather records and that Plimer’s claims that there was no evidence polar ice was melting were misleading.

The newspaper breached two of the general principles of reporting: ensuring factual material is accurate (principle 1) and ensuring facts are presented with reasonable fairness and balance and opinion is based on fact (principle 3).

The council found that while it would have preferred Plimer’s links to the mining industry were disclosed in the column, the Australian did not breach guidelines in not disclosing because Plimer’s “past or present directorships of mining companies and advocacy in the debate around climate change were so well known” that it was not required.

Plimer is a professor of geology and well-known climate change denier who has served as a director of a number of mining firms, including Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill Holdings and Queensland Coal Investments.

In reviewing the article last November, University of New South Wales professor Katrin Meissner wrote: “This article is an impressive collation of the well known, scientifically wrong, and overused denier arguments. It is ideologically motivated and, frankly, utter nonsense.”….

COVID-19 denialists and minimizers

Yale Climate Connections, 14 April 2020:

For the climate community, observing U.S. national political leaders’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic has been like watching the climate crisis unfold on fast-forward. Many – particularly on the political right – have progressed through the same five stages of science denial in the face of both threats.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 15 April 2020:

As the Covid-19 crisis plays out across the world, a disturbing new form of denialism is emerging which seeks to sow doubt not just about the seriousness of the pandemic or the response to it, but about whether the virus exists at all.

Spurred on by conspiracy theorists and some right-wing media pundits, people using hashtags like ‘#filmyourhospitals’ and ‘#emptyhospitals’ are actively encouraging individuals to film hospitals and medical facilities—the implication being that, if hospitals appear quiet and calm from the outside, this ‘proves’ that the coronavirus crisis is being faked as part of a conspiracy to achieve some nefarious goal.

Google’s search trend data shows clearly the day the ‘empty hospitals’ narrative took off. The #filmyourhospitals hashtag was first tweeted on 29 March by a QAnon conspiracy theorist on Twitter. It was then amplified by others with large numbers of followers, including former congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero (whose Twitter account was recently retweeted by President Donald Trump).

‘Let’s get #FilmYourHospital trending’, Tesoriero wrote on 30 March in a Facebook post in which she questioned why two Los Angeles hospitals she’d visited appeared quiet. The post had been viewed more than 118,000 times as of 14 April.....

The Telegraph (UK), 26 March 2020:

Two weeks ago an anti-vaccine Facebook group called ‘We Brought Vaxxed to the UK’ started to disseminate a new and dangerous contagion: misinformation about Covid-19. 

It’s posts promote xenophobia, conspiracy theories and erroneous medical information about the disease and how it might be treated. 

One post claimed China was using the outbreak to cull the elderly, another suggested hand sanitiser causes cancer and a “probiotic yogurt suppository” was recommended as a cure. 

The group is just one of some 50 social media accounts being tracked by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a charity dedicated to preventing false and divisive lies and myths spreading across the web... 

The Independent, 20 March 2020:

Here in northeast Kansas, in a small town set amid tidy farms and ranches, a Walmart worker named Brandon Crist was growing frustrated with the panic terrorising the American public. 

He didn’t understand the need for lockdowns, closing schools, limiting public gatherings and shuttering bars and restaurants. Altering almost all facets of life. 

As he often does, Mr Crist found a meme online that amplified his feelings and posted it to his Facebook page. 

“Does anyone know anyone who has the coronavirus? Not just heard about them but actually know them,” the meme said in bold white letters on a blue background. “Statistically none of us are sick ... yet concerts are cancelled, tournaments are cancelled and entire school districts shut down. Out of total irrational fear. If you have not previously feared the power of the media you should be terrified of them now. They are exerting their power to shut down America.” 

The post struck a chord with Mr Crist’s friends here in Wellsville and beyond, many of whom are similarly frustrated with the pandemic-induced havoc in their daily lives. “Amen!” said one commenter. “I’m not changing anything I do. This is BS,” said another. A captain from a nearby fire department, Dustin Donovan, liked the message, then added a hoax meme of his own.....