In what could be one of the Coalition’s most ridiculous anti-environment moves yet, Dick Warburton, an energetic climate change denier, has been chosen to head a review of Australia’s renewable energy targets, probably because he’ll decide on scrapping them.
Dick Warburton is not an energy specialist, a climate scientist or even an economist. He’s a wealthy industrialist who has been campaigning vigorously against measures to tackle climate change for years. If you had to pick the worst, least qualified candidate to set renewable energy targets, you couldn’t do much better than this.
In a 2011 interview, Mr Warburton neatly summarised his deep understanding of the economic issues involved in a carbon tax: “It gets confusing to me and I'm sure it's confusing to the community at large. But there's been a lot of work done, but it's just confusing results coming out of it.”
His grasp of climate science is even better: ‘“Well I am a sceptic. I’ve never moved away from that. I’ve always believed sceptical,’’ he said in an interview this year. “But a sceptic is a different person than a denier. I say the science is not settled. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’ve never said it’s wrong, but I don’t believe it’s settled.’
Tell the government that to put something so important to the country’s future in the hands of somebody who clearly doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing is unacceptable.
We the undersigned ask that you immediately withdraw Dick Warburton from reviewing Australia’s renewable energy targets. Mr Warburton has no relevant expertise and has already demonstrated clear bias. He is a self-proclaimed climate sceptic, despite, it appears, having no knowledge of the subject whatsoever. He also has little knowledge of economics or energy, and is in no way qualified to be deciding on Australia’s energy policy.
Putting a biased and completely unqualified person in charge of such an important decision is beyond ridiculous. Kindly stop making Australia the dangerous laughing stock of the world.
Thank you for your attention.
