The Greens Party’s election policies are succinctly discussed on its official website. The available information enables commentators and potential members to ascertain the views of the Greens with regard to various issues, including what is called the climate change “crisis” and its relationship with Beijing.
“We’ll make big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax to clean up the mess they’re making, fund the transition to 100% renewables, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, bring electricity costs down, and kick off a full-scale renewable export industry.”
The Greens also advocate an immediate freeze on all new coal, oil, and gas projects to secure a “safe climate future.”
The language used by the Greens on its website reveals their prejudices. The Greens assume, without offering any proof, that billionaires evade their tax obligations and make a “mess”—a reference to emissions policies of corporations—and they make the claim that a transition to 100 percent renewables will “create hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
These allegations are staggering in their simplicity and devoid of any real understanding of the relevant issues.
The Greens excoriate Australia’s current level of carbon emissions. But carbon dioxide is a life-promoting gas that is harmless in the quantities generated by human activity, and it does not drive the feared global warming.
In this context, John McRobert, a civil engineer with over 50 years of first-hand experience in and studying the cause and effect of extreme weather events, argues that science indicates that hot eruptions coming from sub-sea volcanic vents are actually responsible for surface warming cycles of the planet.
Specifically, he argues that natural emissions of carbon dioxide from those vents “dwarf those of mankind, and this is now being recognised through more exploration of the largely unexplored seabed, making a mockery of meaningless Net-zero targets.” Of course, it is unlikely that McRobert’s views will have any impact on the obsessive determination of the Greens to pursue their climate change illusions.
As one ponders the neurotic concern of the Greens with climate change, its admiration for and defence of Beijing is surprising and inconsistent with its policies. Although it is true that, during the last decade, the Chinese regime has endeavoured to improve its climate change reputation, it is noticeably increasing its reliance on coal.
Beijing adopted the Paris Agreement in September 2016 and was a keen participant at the COP26 Glasgow Conference in 2021, which limited global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Chinese Leader Xi Jinping even announced that China would no longer build coal-fired power stations overseas.
But, although it signed a Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement with the United States, China continues to rely heavily on coal, thereby flouting its pretended concern for the climate.
The Greens also do not perceive any problem with the conclusion of a security agreement between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Solomon Islands, even though the Islands’ government bitterly complains in international forums about the impact of global warming on their country, with little recognition of natural climate change history in the Pacific.
This security agreement has generated a stream of commentary, which laments the loss of Australian influence in that region. Australian and American commentators have described the security agreement as a precursor to Beijing establishing a military base on the Islands, despite the protestations of the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, who called this criticism “hysterical and hypocritical.”
The Greens feel that the Solomon Islands, as a sovereign nation, is entitled to establish relationships with any country, and not just with Australia.
The CCP’s infiltration into the Pacific is the most worrying consequence of the security agreement. Traditionally, Australia has helped its Pacific neighbours, even empathising with Pacific nations’ climate change concerns, but the CCP is now invading Australia’s backyard.
Senator Penny Wong, Labor’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson, has characterised the security agreement with Beijing as the greatest policy failure of the Morrison government. According to her, Australia should have done more to deal with the climate challenges of the Islands, but when she was asked in a recent 7.30 interview what the Labor Party would have done, she recommended throwing more money at the Solomon Islands, which is precisely what Beijing is doing.
A claim that is unverifiable given that real-world statistics from China are unavailable thanks to Beijing’s total control over statistical data in the country.
It is interesting that the Greens maintain their admiration of the Chinese regime even though its policies are often the opposite of those propagated by the Greens, especially in the field of climate change. China’s economy is still very much dependent on coal, the mining of which the Greens want to stop with immediate effect. How is it possible for a political party to admire a regime that disregards its own holiest policies?
Why do the Greens criticise the climate change policies of the Coalition and Labor while at the same time applauding the so-called miraculous transformation of China into a world power, despite its disastrous air pollution and forestation policies?
Of course, the Greens Party’s platform with regards to climate change and its relationship with China will continue to play to its target Australian audience. But it does not hide the fact that these policies are not much more than motherhood statements, bereft of detail and rationality.
