Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are things about the world that will always remain constant. One is that sea levels and tides will always go up and down. The political situation in Australia now and the argument for a carbon tax are like the tides, they ebb and flow, and opinions are rising and falling. The opinions of Australians on a carbon tax have fallen significantly, as only 36 per cent of people actually want it. The government has done everything but tell Australians not to buy a house at the beach because it will soon be under water. Mr Acting Deputy President, I know that you have a seaside property and I hope you do not feel that you have to sell it, because my speech will give you some encouragement to hold that property.

The Gillard government argues that climate change is affecting rising sea levels. But the need for a carbon tax to offset these effects is losing depth as evidence to the contrary mounts and the facts on sea levels are favouring history over the Labor government's alarmist future. According to the National Tidal Centre of the Bureau of Meteorology, the average trend calculated from 39 tide stations was a rise of 0.9 millimetres a year over the last century. These figures now show a much more realistic average rise of sea levels of 1.4 millimetres a year. I tried that out and was told, 'If you really want to be accurate, go and get some satellite data.' So I did.

Satellite data also shows sea levels globally have risen by 3.2 millimetres a year. I was informed that over the 20th century sea levels had risen by about 1.8 millimetres a year for an overall sea rise level of about 20 centimetres during that period. These figures are accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the government backed report on climate change, The critical decade, released last month, and they agree with my research. Both The critical decade report and the Bureau of Meteorology agree that sea levels have risen by 3.2 millimetres a year—so we have some common ground there—and would rise to about 0.32 metres by 2100. The report goes on to state on page 25 in tiny letters that projections of 1.5 or two metres seem high, but why did it then state on page 23, in extra large headlines and large font, that sea levels could rise by 0.50 to nearly two metres in the next hundred years. To say sea levels could rise by two metres in a hundred years when they have been rising by 3.2 millimetres a year over the last 20 years seems unrealistic. Yes, they could rise. You could be hit by a satellite—anything could happen. But it is not realistic.

According to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mr Combet, by 2100 sea levels will have risen by 1.1 metres. He has based most of his recent scaremongering on a report that was released in June. The report, Climate change risks to coastal buildings and infrastructure, was released a week later than The critical decade. It identifies significant risks to commercial and light industrial infrastructure and road and rail systems in Australia's coastal areas based on a sea level rise of 1.1 metres, representing a high-end scenario for 2100. If we are to believe the two government reports, it seems that sea levels have risen by two metres and have dropped by one metre. It is the Archimedes-in-a-bathtub principle—sea levels have changed in the space of a week. There were two reports: one said two metres; the other said 1.1 metres. How are we to believe these things if the government cannot even get it right within a period of two weeks and comes out with two differing reports varying by up to a metre? The two reports were brought out in the space of a week and yet predict two different things. How can this be? Either sea levels will rise by two metres or by 1.1 metre—it cannot be both. The exaggerations do not stop there. We can look at the findings of scientists that Labor holds up as gatekeepers of the truth on climate change, like Tim Flannery. He said:

Anyone with a coastal view from their bedroom window, or their kitchen window, or wherever, is likely to lose their house as a result of that change, so anywhere, any coastal cities, coastal areas, are in grave danger.

But the next year he bought a house just four or five metres from the edge of the tidal waters around the Hawkesbury estuary. He now contradicts that earlier scare without apologising for it. He told the Weekend Australian that while waterfront property generally was at risk, his little bit of paradise was secure for his lifetime:

There is no chance of it being inundated, short of a collapse of the Greenland Ice Shelf.

Flannery has also admitted that no matter what action we take on climate change there will not be anything that will have a substantial effect on global warming for at least 1,000 years. I think he did mention 100 years, but 1,000 years was mentioned there too. Despite Flannery's misrepresentation and misuse of the facts, other non-government aligned scientists have conducted research of the highest calibre and have deemed the reality of the situation to be different and not so dire.

A former environmental scientist for the Bureau of Meteorology, William Kininmonth, has written a paper entitled, 'A natural constraint to anthropogenic global warming' that demonstrates exactly why Minister Combet's and Mr Flannery's predictions are wrong. Kininmonth 's paper shows that Minister Combet is confusing the projections of rudimentary computer models with science. The rudimentary computer models to date have shown no ability to predict temperature and sea level variations on monthly, seasonal, annual or decadal timescales.

Despite the contrary claims by the IPCC and its followers, there is no demonstrated skill in the computer models; they likely exaggerate the impact of atmospheric CO2 increases by more than a factor of three. The empirical evidence of science is that the climate system varies on a range of timescales for reasons that are poorly understood. The interannual variability associated with El Nino events has a great impact on Australia's climate, ocean surface temperatures and sea levels around Northern Australia. These events and their impacts cannot be predicted in advance. The decadal fluctuations in climate are observed but not understood. The centennial-scale fluctua­tions, with advancing and retreating mountain glaciers, have been identified from historical accounts and from archaeological and proxy records; the recent emergence from the little ice age and the current relative warmth are part of this pattern. The evidence of science is that the 20th century rate of warming and sea level rise was not unusual and there is no uncontroversial observational evidence indicating that the rates of warming or sea level rises have accelerated recently with increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

In the face of sound evidence, the projections of rudimentary computer models are a poor basis for government policy. And yet Minister Combet insists that coastal assets at risk from the combined impact of inundation and erosion include between 5,800 and 8,600 commercial buildings, between 3,700 and 6,200 light industrial buildings and between 27,000 and 35,000 kilometres of roads and rail. But as Mr Kininmonth asserts, these stats are based on computer generated figures. The Gillard government wants to use facts that we know cannot be predicted in advance and to disregard historical evidence that suggests all is not what it seems. Not only that—it continues to deny the existence of further evidence that proves its stance on sea levels to be wrong.

For example, even if we are to believe Minister Combet's claims based on his report, new findings separate from Mr Kininmonth 's suggest that sea levels could even be decelerating. This analysis was undertaken by New South Wales principal coastal specialist Phil Watson and calls into question one of the key criteria for large-scale inundation around the Australian coast by 2100—the assumption of an accelerating rise in sea levels because of climate change. Based on tide gauge records, the analysis finds there was a consistent trend of weak deceleration from 1940 to 2000. According to Mr Watson this deceleration is continuing and the government's projections are way off. Mr Watson's finding is supported by a similar analysis of long-term tide gauges in the US earlier this year. Both seem to raise questions about the CSIRO's sea-level predictions.

Mr Watson contends that in all cases it is clear that although the sea level is rising, it has been decelerating for at least the last half of the 20th century, and so the present trend would only produce a sea level rise of around 15 centimetres for the 21st century. Mr Watson has pointed out in his research that during the 20th century there was a measurable global average rise in the mean sea level of about 17 centimetres, plus or minus five centimetres. But scientific projections, led by the government funded Panel on Climate Change, have suggested climate change will deliver a much greater global tide rise in the mean sea level this century of 80 to 100 centimetres.

How can the predictions be so different? If one is wrong, which one is it? One would have to believe the historical evidence that suggests a less alarmist scenario rather than the government funded view which we know cannot be accurately predicted. Both Kininmonth and Watson seem to be saying the same thing: that the government's view on sea levels is not accurate or realistic. However, the Gillard government knows the alarmist view is the only one that will allow an argument in favour of a carbon tax to hold any water. So, the factual and historical science must be disregarded in favour of a much more biased and inaccurate form. It is like having a jigsaw puzzle and, instead of matching each piece with the correct holes, you try to make the holes match the pieces. That is what the government is doing.

The difference in the two models shows that there is a clear problem with the CSIRO findings. The difference is so vast—15 centimetres versus 1.1 metres—that there has to be some sort of miscalculation here. And yet the Labor government still bangs on about the science. As Julia Gillard says, 'It all comes back to the science, the science, the science'. She boasts about the informa­tion from the CSIRO being a direct reason for initiating her destructive policy. The truth is that empirical evidence shows that sea levels are in fact not rising at the rate the government says they are. If the government ignores this, it is being irrespon­sible and reckless and is imposing a major burden onto the economy of Australia. Rising sea levels are also a factor in people not being able to get bank loans for businesses and houses, as the bank deems certain areas too risky to be developed due to future sea level predictions. This is creating great uncertainty.

Science can be right or wrong and the CSIRO can be right or wrong. Two prominent scientists disagree with CSIRO. So what can we do as laypeople? All we can do is look at how the tide has increased over the last 100 years—20 centimetres—and how the tide has risen in the last 10 or 15 years, which is about 3.2 millimetres a year. Everyone agrees it is 3.2 millimetres a year. But then we see this massive jump, as predicted by the coastal report and the other report, and it is going to go from 3.2 millimetres a year—which no-one has an argument with—to two metres in one report and 1.1 metres in the other report. In the small print of these reports they say that might be an exaggeration, it might be too much, but in the big black headlines in one report it clearly states that the level of sea rise could approach two metres. There are disclaimers on it but that is the headline, in big, black, bold writing. That is what people look at.

We have to look at these things carefully. Yes, anything can happen in the world and I accept that. But how do you go from 3.2 millimetres a year to the worst-case scenario of a two-metre rise in sea levels? No-one is denying that that could happen, but it is very, very unlikely. Quite frankly, I think it has been a scare campaign by Mr Combet and the Gillard government.