Expert slams Australian government climate report’s ‘extreme’ population forecast
The Australian government's dire climate warnings have been challenged by a leading US expert who says population and coal use forecasts are wildly inflated.
Doomsday research released by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was built on a “science fiction” scenario that “does not pass the laugh test”, according to a US expert speaking at a major Australian insurance risk summit on Wednesday.
Roger Pielke, who until recently led the University of Colorado’s science policy centre, told this masthead the federal government’s Australian Climate Service (ACS) had behaved like Greenpeace in preparing the National Climate Risk Assessment.
Published last week, the report warned that if world temperatures rise by 3C, deaths from extreme heat would increase by more than five times in Sydney and that 1.5 million extra people would be at risk of coastal flooding.
Ahead of an address to the Aon Hazards conference on the Gold Coast, Professor Pielke said the ACS climate risk assessment used an “extreme scenario” to forecast consequences.
By contrast, he said separate research from the CSIRO – also released last week after being commissioned by Matt Kean’s Climate Change Authority – relied on a different and far more “optimistic scenario for projecting costs” for mitigation.
Exaggerating impacts and “low-balling” costs was political advocacy, Prof Pielke said.
The scenario used in the ACS climate risk assessment predicts that by 2100, the world population will be more than 12 billion. The United Nations forecasts there will only be 10b then, up from 8.1b now.
The scenario estimates coal consumption of more than 500 exajoules at the end of the century. But Prof Pielke said a draft of the upcoming International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook predicts coal use will decline to less than 150EJ by 2050.
“It is a scenario that is from science fiction,” he said. “It doesn’t pass the laugh test.”
The ACS said: “Mr Pielke Jr has incorrectly represented the methodology used in the National Climate Risk Assessment.”
Mr Bowen’s spokesman said: “The National Climate Risk Assessment was supported by over 250 of Australia’s leading scientists and experts, including economists and statisticians with input from more than 2000 participants involved in 41 key workshops with all levels of government, industry and academia.
“It used data and advice from Australia’s most trusted organisations … through a rigorous two-pass process that spanned over two years to deliver the most comprehensive assessment of the risks posed by climate change across Australia,” Mr Bowen’s spokesman said.
A response was sought from the CSIRO, which referred the inquiry to the Climate Change Authority.
The CCA said the CSIRO “modelling is conservative and doesn’t account for new technologies and the economic benefits that come from taking advantage of new green export opportunities like green iron.”
At +3C of global warming, heat related mortality is projected to increase by 444 per cent in Sydney, 259 per cent in Melbourne, 335 per cent in Townsville, 312 per cent in Perth, 146 per cent in Launceston and 423 per cent in Darwin.
This masthead also attempted to put Prof Pielke’s criticisms to leading Australian climate scientists.
Prof Pielke recently left the University of Colorado after 24 years, with much of that time focused on climate change.
In a recent article published by another university, he said that during the latter part of his academic career, “climate change became a deeply politicised issue on campus. A cadre of faculty worked to transform the university into an activist organisation dedicated to pursuing a left-wing agenda.”
He is now a fellow of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
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