Number eight in Craig Kelly’s series 20 reasons why the Wuhan Flu is the final nail in the climate alarmists’ coffin.

The science is settled. The time for debate is over. It’s actually better than we thought. The Pacific islands are not sinking under rising sea levels, in fact, the peer-reviewed science shows the exact opposite, the majority of low lying islands are either stable or increasing in size — something even ABC FactCheck was forced to concede.

Nevertheless, this has not stopped climate alarmists led by the Portuguese socialist and UN General Secretary Guterres from denying the peer-reviewed science and exploiting Pacific Island nations, by using them as patsies to peddle fear and misinformation with discredited claims of ”sinking islands”.

And so far, the Pacific islanders have been happy to play along; perhaps driven by a cargo-cult mentality, believing if they utter the magic words ”climate change” and pose for the international media forlornly staring out over the sea, that they might be rewarded with cash handouts from the UN Green Global Climate fund.

But that was all before the Wuhan Flu. 

Firstly, the worldwide economic devastation caused by the Wuhan Flu has turned the belief that the UN Green Climate Fund would have US$100 billion cash annually to hand out rivers of gold to Pacific Island nations, into nothing other than a delusional fantasy. 

Secondly, the Wuhan flu, by temporarily putting an end to international tourism has given the Pacific Islanders a taste of the dark future they face if the alarmists pushing for “net-zero” get their way and end air travel until the eco-fantasy of electric-powered jumbo-jets powered by unicorn farts and pulled along by flying pigs becomes a reality.

For as Julian Allwood, a professor of Engineering and the Environment at Cambridge University, has recently admitted, the only way of achieving the fabled net-zero emissions in aviation is “by having a substantial period of no aviation at all.” 

For an island nation like Fiji, tourism (which is dependent upon international air travel) contributes nearly 40% of their GPD and directly/indirectly employs over 150,000 people out of the nation’s population of around 900,000 — and where airfreight plays a vital role in exports and imports —  they are now getting a “trial run” of what life would be like if climate alarmists are successful in enforcing their sinister plans of net-zero. 

Currently, with the Wuhan Flu restricting air travel and closing borders, Fiji Airways, the country’s national airline, has already grounded 95 per cent of flights. The Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association (FHTA) says a staggering 279 hotels and resorts have closed, with over 40,000 tourism workers either laid off or sent on leave without pay. And unlike Australia, Fiji doesn’t have a JobKeeper scheme to fall back on. 

This current situation has been described as a ‘disaster’, a ‘complete catastrophe’, with livelihoods being destroyed and tens of thousands pushed into dire poverty. And although hopefully this will only be temporary until the travel restrictions are lifted, the Pacific Islanders will quickly realise, that if the climate alarmists get their way, this will become permanent. 

And if their fragile economies are in ruins from the permanent decline in tourism brought on by the Climate Alarmists’ enforcement of ‘net zero’, these Pacific island nations will be substantially more vulnerable to not only the next cyclone that strikes but also to the seductive lure of selling their souls for China’s Belt and Road.

So having been awaken to the economic reality of what’s in store for them should the climate alarmists’ manage to enforce their sinister plan, when the next UN delegation sets foot upon the ‘friendly islands’ of the Pacific and starts parroting on about climate change, sinking islands’ and the need for ”net-zero” rather than being greeted with a warm embrace and traditional floral lei, these alarmists will be more deserving of the treatment that was dished out to the less fortunate visiting European missionaries during the nineteenth century.

Craig Kelly is the Liberal Member for Hughes.

Illustration: The massacre of the lamented missionary the Rev. J. Williams and Mr. Harris, George Baxter, 1841, National Gallery of Australia.

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