It is easy to see how surreal the climate debate has become when half the world seems to be in the thrall of a Swedish teenage environmentalist activist named Greta Thunberg with no scientific qualifications but powered by youthful idealism and misinformation.

Having failed to convince sufficient adults to worship at the altar of climate change catastrophe, the climate movement has now successfully recruited our children to take up the banner. In the best manner of totalitarian movements everywhere, they have learnt the value of indoctrinating our children in aid of their dubious cause. And we would have to say their long-time indoctrination of schoolchildren is paying off. Our gullible, susceptible children are being terrorised by climate doomsday prognostications. They are bombarded with climate propaganda from kindergarten onwards and in some cases (like Thunberg) encouraged to skip school to join environmental protesters.

Sooner or later we need to combat this malignant problem by ensuring all our citizens, including our children, are apprised of the real threat of climate change. Climate change is not an apocalyptical threat. The climate activists would have us believe human life on earth is unduly threatened if global temperatures rise by one or two degrees despite the fact the human race has survived vastly greater temperature increases in the past. As a result governments shouldn’t adopt climate change strategies that impede their economic progress by responding irrationally to the rantings of the climate extremists. Although there is some merit in adopting proportionate measures to reduce carbon emissions.

The Morrison government, to date, has refused to commit to the virtue signalling target embraced by many governments of attaining net zero emissions by 2050. The Prime Minister has made it clear that Australia will continue to strive to reduce its emissions and would be happy if Australia could achieve net zero emissions by 2050 provided it didn’t unduly impact on the Australian economy.

Morrison points out that rather than commit to “feel good” targets he would prefer to achieve as much as we can through practical and pragmatic actions. It is telling that those countries urging us to set higher targets with respect to the reduction of emissions have themselves not met the previous targets they have set themselves. So our Prime Minister is right to focus on actual outcomes rather than nebulous goals that are unlikely to be met. Australia is well on the way to meet its targets under the Paris accord. Most of the countries castigating Australia for not adopting more ambitious targets have poor records in meeting their own targets. Morrison rightly asserts that achieving results on the ground is far more important than signing up to targets that are unlikely to be achieved. The virtue signalling G7 nations at the recent Cornwall event all pledged commitment to zero net carbon by 2050. They have little understanding of how the target is to be achieved and even less likelihood of attaining that goal. Their record in meeting their pledges in the Paris Accord demonstrates that “they talk the talk but can’t walk the walk” whilst Australia is comfortably on track to meet its obligations.

As I have frequently pointed out, Australia’s emissions are a miniscule proportion of the world’s emissions and reducing Australia’s emissions consequently has negligible impact on global warming (if you believe that carbon emissions is the prime determinant of global warming).

All the while China, the world’s largest emitter is being treated as a developing country and is absolved from meeting the same targets as the developed economies. It seems a strange decision to include China as a developing nation when it now has its own space station and an unmanned vehicle exploring the surface of Mars!

The climate warriors extoll China’s virtues instancing the growth in its renewable energy generation notwithstanding the fact that they have hundreds of coal-fired power stations under development. I see little evidence that China has any desire whatsoever to reduce its carbon emissions.

It beggars belief that the global warming catastrophists assume China has an intention of doing anything significant to reduce its emissions. China is unlikely to take any action that will adversely affect its economic development. They will be well pleased that “woke” western nations are engaged in doubtful strategies to reduce their carbon emissions but which surely wil increase their energy costs.

But what now? In the face of this illogical debate, a new factor has recently emerged. UNESCO’s World Heritage Commission is threatening to declare that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is in danger. Not surprisingly the WHC is chaired by China and many of the members of the Commission are countries beholden to China because they have signed up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is hard not to believe that this intervention by the WHC is not another Chinese attack on Australia because of Australia’s forthright criticism of China with respect to the origins of the COVID 19 virus. China has already curtailed trade with Australia by imposing unreasonable tariffs on Australia’s barley, wine beef, lobster and coal exports among others.

The Queensland government has declared that “the removal of the reef from the World Heritage List would be disastrous to the state’s tourism industry.”

Once again we find Australia’s sovereignty challenged by unelected ideologues from the United Nations. It is laughable that the assault on Australia’s ability to preserve the Great Barrier Reef is led by China who has destroyed reefs in the South China Sea to construct military bases.

There is no doubt that China is adept at using the United Nations to further its own interests. We saw that clearly in the way that the World Health Organisation was co-opted to defend China’s role in propagating the Coronavirus.

Fortunately some nations (notably France, Canada, Britain, Thailand and Spain) have come to Australia’s aid protesting that due process hasn’t been followed in proclaiming the Great Barrier Reef is under threat.

The prime complaint about Australia’s management of the reef has been about the incidence of coral bleaching which is purported to be due to global warming.

Coral bleaching has been observed on the reef since the 1930’s when the reef first became an object of scientific research. There is no doubt that there were many such occasions of coral bleaching in the centuries before. The reef is far more resilient than the more extreme environmentalists would suggest. It has the capacity to regenerate. Many of those who proclaim the degeneration of the reef are the very scientists who benefit from additional funding by governments who rush to create more research programs in response to the propaganda of the alarmists. And it doesn’t pay to challenge this doctrine – just ask Peter Ridd!

The United Nation’s suggested remedy seems to be that Australia should do more to curtail its carbon emissions. As I stated earlier this is a preposterous suggestion given that Australia’s emissions are such a minuscule proportion of global emissions. Nothing Australia could do in reducing its carbon emissions would have any significant effect on global warming,

In this and other interventions by the United Nations (often instigated by totalitarian regimes, including China) we need to assert our autonomy. Australia’s sovereignty should never be abrogated to the enemies of democracy and reason.