Ignore climate change skeptics, say church leaders: The Church of England Newspaper, June 10, 2011 p 6.

Lord Turnbull

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

Religious leaders have urged Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to hold fast in the face of mounting criticism of her government’s proposed “carbon tax” to help stop global warming.

Last week, 28 members of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) coalition called upon the prime minister, giving her their support for federal legislation to combat climate through a programme of carbon emission credits.

However, the political and scientific consensus that saw 193 nations and the European Union endorse the Kyoto protocols in 1997 appears to have collapsed, with the US, China and many developing nations pulling back from the accord.  The coalition government in Britain’s green agenda has also come under fire, with senior figures questioning the underlining assumptions surrounding climate change.

On June 2, the ARRCC urged the Australian government not to buckle under pressure from industry.  “Climate change is not only a scientific, environmental, economic and political issue – it is also a profoundly moral and spiritual one,” the organization’s website argued.

A member of the ARRCC delegation, retired Bishop George Browning of Canberra and Goulburn, the current chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council’s Environmental Network, said “our generation has been given humanity’s last chance to avert a climate emergency. Our grandchildren will just have to bear with the results of what we decide to do now.”

The bishop lambasted climate change skeptics on May 27, saying “the naysayers are holding Australia back from taking responsible action with their fear-mongering and misinformation. Not only can we act, we must act.”

While calls for action to combat climate change enjoyed a considerable vogue in recent years, the claims of global warming alarmists have met with sustained scientific and political attack with the momentum of the movement now stalled in most industrial countries.  In a paper released last week, the World Bank reported the global market for trading in carbon permits had collapsed, raising questions over the feasibility of the Australian federal government’s plans to shift to an emissions trading scheme.

In the UK, support for carbon taxes and other government ‘green’ programmes was questioned on May 16 by Lord Turnbull, the former Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service, who urged MPs and ministers to consider more carefully the rising costs and economic risks of Britain’s unilateral climate policies.

In a sharp critique of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that provides the basis for government thinking on climate change, Lord Turnbull questioned its scientific rigour.  “Ministers would be well advised not to place such heavy bets on just one rather alarmist source of advice,” Lord Turnbull said.

The “UK’s unilateral climate targets” pose a “serious threat” to “British business and the economy, particularly at a time of considerable economic fragility,” Lord Turnbull said, urging the government to rethink its green agenda.