Illustrating the frailty of political acumen, the demonstrators have the support of the UK Parliamentwhich voted that there is a climate change emergency and did so in spite of opposition from Michael Gove, the warmista Environment Minister.
Environmental activists put the disconnect between climate fears and actions down to “a continuing campaign by Big Oil to confuse, obfuscate and delay.” This view was echoed by losing Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten in his valedictory speech. However the view cannot be reconciled with the support voiced for carbon taxes by leading Australian energy firms, including BHP and Woodside. Nor, on the global stage, is it consistent with BP's caving into shareholder demands to set out a business strategy consistent with achieving net zero emissions by 2050, (a position rejected by Exxon and Chevron).
Investor Group activists argue that firms' directors must act on climate change to meet their fiduciary duties. But going green and relying on unreliable and expensive power sources could be a much greater threat to directors in sending companies into insolvency.
The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Examiner among many other news outlets attributed the Australian May 2019 election result to the failure of the Labor Party/Green’s climate change policies, seeing this as part of a global trend.
My own assessment, in Canada’s Financial Post, recognised the importance of climate policy issues. It also noted that the Liberal/National Party (LNP) went to the election with policies that included subsidies and regulations to reduce CO2 emissions with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg suggesting that there is an “inevitable” transition to low-emissions sources. Moreover, Labor got over 48 per cent of the two party preference vote in spite of compounding its green manifesto with a high taxation policy.
Terry McCrann pointed out that Queensland, where opposition to climate-oriented regulatory restraints on energy is most prominent, elected 23 LNP MPs and 6 Labor, while the rest of Australia voted in 55 LNP to 61 Labor. An immediate reaction to the election result was panic by the Queensland state government which reversed its position of opposing the proposed Adani coal mine.
The EU elections showed an increasing polarisation with the greens making major gains (taking their voting share to 11 per cent) but the gains were confined to the more affluent countries. Groups that are generally opposed to green policies made even bigger gains. Traditional left/right parties now have less than half the vote with anti and pro EU parties each with one quarter.
In the US, Democratic Party hopefuls are vying for the most ambitious spending proposals. Washington Governor Jay Inslee calls for zero emissions by 2035, with a 10 year plan to invest $9 trillion in modern manufacturing and green infrastructure to “revitalize America’s economy for the 21st century.”
Democratic Senators Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico wrote a letter to NBC News calling for its initial presidential debate, scheduled for two nights in June, to focus solely on climate change.
Presidential candidate John Delaney released a $4 trillion plan to fight climate change that calls for a carbon tax, contrasting himself with Democrats who have not endorsed carbon pricing. The tax starts at $15 per ton rising by $10 per ton annually; he says it would reduce carbon emissions 90% by 2050.
Meanwhile, Alberta is to end its provincial carbon tax which the Governor says will save $1.4 billion annually. The pro-carbon tax Trudeau Federal Government may replace Alberta’s tax with a national measure but is expected to lose Canada's national elections in October.
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