Opinion: Climate conferences distract Chris Bowen from doing damage

The longer Chris Bowen spends at international climate conferences, the less damage he can do back home, writes Mike O’Connor.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen speaks during a plenary session at COP30 in Brazil. Picture: Andre Penner/AP

We should all be grateful to the Turks for not only saving us the fiscal equivalent of 100m doner kebabs but for also taking Energy Minister Chris Bowen out of the country, celebrating with one of Turkey’s culinary gifts to the world.

Make mine lamb with chilli sauce. Kebabs, however, will be off the menu in Adelaide, where the city’s hoteliers and caterers were salivating at the prospect of accommodating, feeding and intoxicating 50,000 COP31 climate change conference freeloaders to the estimated tune of around $2bn and charging it all back to the Australian taxpayer.

The rest of the nation should breathe a sigh of collective relief and ring the church bells to celebrate Turkey being named as host, with Minister Bowen winning second prize and being appointed president of negotiations for COP31.

With characteristic modesty, Minister Bowen declared he would have all the powers of COP presidency to manage, to handle the negotiations, to appoint co-facilitators, to prepare draft text, and to issue the cover decision.

Splendid, minister. Well done. Anything that takes you out of the country and distracts you from ensuring we have among the highest energy prices in the world while wasting billions on renewable fantasy projects has to be a good thing.

It’s almost 110 years to the day since our troops withdrew from Gallipoli so perhaps in recognition of this anniversary the Turks have decided to let bygones be bygones and take Bowen off our hands if only for a year.

Now all that is left to do is to get them to take federal Environment Minister Murray Watt as well who is fast assuming a leading role in the parliamentary pantheon of looney tunes cartoon characters that populate federal parliament.

Sensing, perhaps, that with Chris Bowen’s ego distracted by the enticing possibility of donning the shining green mantle of El Presidente COP31 and lecture the world from atop a Turkish soapbox, now was his chance to stake his claim as a potential leader of the Seriously Delusional And Possibly Insane Climate Crazies Society and usurp Bowen.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen (left) at COP30 in Brazil. Picture: Anderson Coelho/Reuters

He’s off to a flying start, rocketing out of the blocks like a somewhat stouter version of Gout Gout with an address to the Queensland Media Club that warned us that the end was nigh.

According to our man Watt the federal Coalition’s decision to abandon net zero exposes Queenslanders to more frequent and more intense natural disasters, warning us that we are the most disaster-prone state in the country, with floods, cyclones, storms and bushfires wreaking havoc, taking lives and costing billions of dollars every year.

One wonders if it dawned on Minister Watt that if you live in a state which lies astride the Tropic of Capricorn then you will experience more than your share of floods, cyclones, storms and bushfires.

According to the minister, more than the residents of any other state we live the reality of climate change every single summer and it’s now starting earlier! We were also told that despite it knowing that climate change will drive even more disasters “the federal Coalition has just told Queenslanders they don’t care!”

That’s right. The Coalition has abandoned Queensland, content to sit back in Canberra and watch as the Sunshine State is consumed by bushfires and obliterated by cyclones on those occasions when it is not submerged beneath raging floodwaters.

The only question now, Watt warned, was when “this merry band of climate deniers will bring their high power price crusade to the Queensland LNP with higher power bills for every Queensland household”.

So there you have it. Our state is doomed. You may as well spend up big this Christmas. Enjoy it while you can because the world as we know it in our beloved state is about to end thanks to those dreadful Coalition bastards in Canberra.

It’s the condescension in Watt’s remarks that really grates, the presumption that gullible, simple-minded Queenslanders will actually believe his apocalyptic nonsense.

Apparently we lack the intelligence to stop for a moment and think: “Haven’t electricity prices been heading north since Albanese moved into The Lodge, and isn’t it true that India, Russia, China and the entire African continent are building coal-fired power stations as fast as they can while our emissions are a mere blip on the world’s radar?”

Senator Watt needs to grab a kebab, take a walk down the Queen Street Mall and ask Queenslanders how they feel about being treated like idiots.

Originally published as Opinion: Climate conferences distract Chris Bowen from doing damage