Clive Palmer invites world leaders to fix climate change at dino-land in Coolum

THE Palmer United Party leader is living several dreams. His latest is to solve climate change by hosting leaders at his resort.

LIKE Martin Luther King and ­Arthur Daley, Clive Palmer has a dream. And his dream is to bring all the countries of the world to “move in unison together” on ­climate change while viewing ­dinosaurs at his Coolum resort.

The leader of the Palmer ­United Party announced he would be hosting the World Climate Change Convention at the resort the day after the G20 summit finishes in Brisbane.

His reasoning is simple: world leaders will all be around Brisbane , so why not pop up the coast for a chat about climate change .

The fact that peak world summits such as that held in Copenhagen in 2009 under the banner of the UN failed to get agreement did not dampen his enthusiasm.

For just as Arthur Daley established the principle that if you put the world “international” in a company it sounded classy, so Mr Palmer likes being associated with events and organisations that have ­“global”, “world” or “international” in them.

The member for Fairfax is the joint secretary-general of the World Leadership Alliance, an outfit that was set up in the US as a joint venture between the Club de Madrid and the World Economic Council. The World Leadership Alliance claims to be made up of 94 former world presidents or prime ministers, and this is likely to be the group that Mr Palmer taps for the World Climate Change Convention.

Yesterday, he announced only that the convention would be held after the G20. Mr Palmer doesn’t actually have any speakers or agenda lined up as yet. “We’ll be having ex-­presidents of other countries. There will be some other eminent people, Nobel Prize-winners and others,” he said. “We’ve got to keep Australia’s position on the ETS alive and keep public debate going on it.

“We’re also hoping that we can establish momentum internationally with some of the major people who’ll be coming here for it so that we can come up with a global emissions trading scheme.”

Mr Palmer said the event would put the Sunshine Coast on the map and create jobs, something dear to his heart as the local member, even though the number of people working at the Coolum resort, previously known as the Hyatt, has dropped by 450 since he has been the owner.

In December last year, Mr Palmer hosted the conference of the Club de Madrid at Coolum.

The “former world leaders” in attendance were former New Zealand prime minister Jenny Shipley, former president of Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga and former prime minister of The Netherlands Wim Kok.