It’s still not too late for Australia’s welfare, let’s hope, for the Opposition to call on the Prime Minister to require Climate Change and Energy Minister the Hon Chris Bowen MP to stand aside, under 9.2 of the Ministerial Code of Conduct: ‘Ministers will be required to stand aside if charged with any criminal offence, or if the Prime Minister regards their conduct as constituting a prima facie breach of this Code.’

Peter Dutton can cite Minister Bowen’s failure to adhere to the following guidelines of the Ministerial Code of Conduct:

1.3 

(iii)

Ministers must accept they are accountable for the exercise of the powers and functions of their office – that is, to ensure that their conduct, representations and decisions as Ministers, and the conduct, representations and decisions of those who act as their delegates or on their behalf – are open to public scrutiny and explanation.

(v) When taking decisions in, or in connection with, their official capacity, Ministers must act in the public interest – that is, based on their best judgment of what will advance the common good of the people of Australia.

Bowen’s failure to present any detailed rationale behind – and specific outcomes for – climate change-related policies denies the public the scrutiny and explanations demanded by the Ministerial Code.

It is evident from the consequences – eg rising energy prices, environmental damage to farmlands (wind turbines, solar panels, and transmission wires) and ocean waters (wind turbines), long-term degradation of fossil fuel mining, growing deficits, and government debt – that Bowen’s policies are not in the public interest.

It is an uncontested fact that the total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a mere 0.04 per cent of the total. Australia’s contribution is a miniscule 0.0002 per cent. Minister Bowen’s policy decisions relating to his climate change and energy portfolios have not been subjected to proper scrutiny by him or his department.

Labor’s energy policy is grounded in wishful thinking. There was no cost-benefit analysis, no technical feasibility study or any sign that an engineer or economist had scrutinised it.

On November 25, 2023, Nick Cater, journalist, author, and political commentator said:

Australia’s rapid transition of electric power systems away from fossil fuels is introducing substantial new risks to their electric power systems. A transition of the electric power system that produces less reliable and more expensive electricity acts as a tourniquet that restricts the lifeblood of modern society.

On January 20, 2023, Dr Judith Curry, 2006-present President, Climate Forecast Applications Network; 2017-present Professor Emeritus, Georgia Institute of Technology, said:

‘…efforts to reduce CO2 and methane is a colossal misuse of resources better allocated for humanitarian endeavours. Such initiatives should be stopped immediately. It’s a total waste of money and time and effort. It is strangling industry. My suspicion is what I am saying here will be totally ignored because people don’t like being told that they’ve made big mistakes of this magnitude,’

John F. Clauser, 2022 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, said:

‘Annual human emissions (3 per cent of the total) of carbon dioxide are meant to drive global warming. This has never been shown. If it could be shown, then it would also have to be shown that natural emissions (97%) don’t drive global warming.’

Prof. Ian Plimer, Australian geologist and professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne; author, said:

‘There is no climate emergency. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science.’

CLINTEL’s Climate Declaration, representing over 1,120 scientists, founded in 2019 by Emeritus Professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok:

In June 2022, Princeton Professor, emeritus, William Happer and MIT Professor, emeritus, Richard Lindzen filed an amicus curiae court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stating that they do not believe there is a climate-related risk related to burning fossil fuels, and the resulting CO2 and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, ‘What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that carbon dioxide from human industry was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world…’

Models have been created, they point out, to show the hypothetical human-caused changes to climate and the supposed damage these changes might cause. Unfortunately, or fortunately, perhaps, the models do not compare well to observations … this invalidates the catastrophic climate change hypothesis.

On July 7, 2022, The European Parliament backed EU rules labelling investments in nuclear power plants – and gas, a fossil fuel – as climate-friendly. Concerns around the renewables rollout include Australia’s reliance on China and other countries for components, including wind turbines and cables.

There is disagreement among experts regarding whether a rapid acceleration away from fossil fuels is the appropriate policy response. ‘In any event,’ Dr Curry wrote in December 2019, ‘rapidly reducing emissions from fossil fuels and ameliorating the adverse impacts of extreme weather events in the near term increasingly looks like magical thinking.’

Yet the top priority requirement, Outcome #1, in Bowen’s Department’s Current Budget Charateristics is in direct contrast to such observations:

Outcome #1: Support the transition of Australia’s economy to Net Zero emissions by 2050; transition energy to support Net Zero while maintaining security, reliability and affordability; support actions to promote adaptation and strengthen resilience of Australia’s economy, society and environment; and take a leadership role internationally in responding to climate change.

Bowen, supported by a large Department whose main task is to keep the Minister fully informed, cannot claim to be ignorant of the many rational arguments against climate alarmism. Which raises the question: is the Minister severely incompetent?

His arrogance reveals a dangerously closed mind – not a desirable characteristic in a minister responsible for one of the most consequential portfolios in Cabinet.

By its silent acquiescence to Bowen’s bullying over climate change, the entire cabinet is complicit in the negative impacts of the Bowen policy suite; it is clearly contrary to the public interest. Maybe they should all be required to stand aside…

Andrew L. Urban is a journalist and author of six non-fiction books and one novel.