Will the Senate inquiry into climate and energy reveal the true sources of misinformation and disinformation?

The Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy was established in July of this year to investigate the prevalence and impacts of misinformation and disinformation in climate and energy policy. The Greens were ostensibly the main impetus behind the investigation and Greens Senator Whish-Wilson is the Chair. But the ALP placed Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah as the Deputy Chair.

Their website proclaims:

Organisations that campaign using disinformation to undermine climate action will come under scrutiny in a new parliamentary inquiry established by the Greens. The UN has recently identified coordinated disinformation campaigns are hindering global progress on climate change by eroding public trust in climate science and influencing political outcomes. How prevalent the propagation of disinformation is in Australia, where it comes from, and who is behind it, will be some of the key areas of inquiry for the committee.

Full details can be found here…

It is my belief that the target is to identify presumptive funding for and to prevent the dissemination of information that is contrary to the belief of dangerous human-induced climate change. It is directed at those who dispute claims that the ‘science is settled’ and that harmful global outcomes will ensue unless urgent action is taken. The aim is to combat and suppress contrary views.

Australia’s climate narrative centred on injurious outcomes from CO2 emissions is driven by various groups. These include the Clean Energy Council (CEC), Climate Council, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), Treasury, and Productivity Commission (PC).

The climate narrative is sustained by alarmist rhetoric, selective data, and Dark Money from subsidy seekers benefitting from taxpayer and regulatory support for facilities designed to supplant coal and gas generation. That support entails $16 billion in annual renewable subsidies.

In contrast to this, there is no substantial funding support to those not pursuing what is, in Australia, the conventional government agenda. For example, there is a claim running around that $14.9 billion of subsidies goes to fossil fuel producers. Actually, none of this comprises subsidies – almost all of it is reimbursement to off-road users and airlines of taxes that are earmarked to pay for roads.

Although mining and energy companies spend millions of dollars on advocacy, few of these firms in fact question climate urgency. Indeed, many businesses, including some of Australia’s largest mining firms, make ongoing membership of lobby groups. Questioning of the government’s favoured climate change narrative is scarce. Part of this is because subsidies to renewables have enticed business investment in these otherwise uncommercial assets and the removal of those subsidies, though bringing lower prices, will render the investments unprofitable.

There is a further dimension to the Senate inquiry.

The US has adopted a contrary view of the danger from CO2 emissions. Congress has enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill, which has removed the subsidies to renewables provided by the Biden administration’s (falsely named) Inflation Reduction Act. The US is taking this further with the Department of Energy (DoE) having commissioned a report by those viewed as sceptics. The sceptics group has now been disbanded because the Union of Concerned Scientists and Environmental Defence Fund pointed out that the paperwork for its commissioning was inadequately completed. But the Trump Administration concurs with its finding of no evidence that human-induced emissions are bringing about dangerous climate changes and attributes recent extreme weather events to natural variability.

Indeed, President Trump has said, ‘We will not approve wind or farmer-destroying solar. The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!’ Hence, the Senate’s terms of reference basically claim that evil and noxious propaganda is also driving opposition to the ‘settled science’ of harmful human-induced climate change in the US.

Could the Senate devise a more calculated insult to be hurled at this nation’s protector? If the US were to notice this inquiry by the Senate, an inquiry which can only have been established with the support of the governing Labor Party, the President would surely wonder if Australia wants the protection and support that only the US can provide. If Prime Minister Albanese were to have his meeting with President Trump, and this inquiry is brought to Trump’s attention, he will have to answer some very difficult questions about why an ostensible ally depicts the President’s signature policies as disinformation and misinformation.

The damaging naïve green-left ideological predilections that underpin the Terms of Reference are compounded by a lack of awareness of the policies in India and China, which with the US and EU are the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Although India and China have formally adopted Net Zero, their goals for achieving this are 35-45 years into the future.

In the case of India, there is little in the way of policies to implement the replacement of fossil fuels by wind and solar (still less the mirage of green hydrogen). India has only 10 per cent of its electricity powered by wind and solar.

China, the major supplier of renewable energy equipment to the world, has about 18 per cent. Unfortunately for the timing of those seeking to use this inquiry to promote wind and solar and destroy coal, China’s solar boom crashed from 93 GW installed in May to just 11 GW in July after subsidies were removed. Moreover, China commissioned 21 GW of new coal power capacity in the first half of 2025, the highest in the last nine years.

Hopefully, in spite of the Senate’s intent, its inquiry into Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy will bring about greater enlightenment to politicians and the public generally of the true situation on these matters.