The Green Road to Ruin Gabriel Moens and John McRobert
https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/doomed-planet/the-green-road-to-ruin/
By any standard, the increasingly frenzied activity on the climate frontlines is staggering. Australia is waiting on a decision by the United Nations to hold COP31 in Adelaide in November 2026. Australia’s application aims at displaying its global leadership in implementing a costly and futile program to replace the utilisation of fossil fuels with the deceptively named ‘renewable’ energy solar cells and wind turbines that are anything but clean or green in their implementation and operation.
On Thursday, September 18, 2025, the Prime Minister announced the government’s emissions reduction target of between 62 and 70 per cent by 2035. The government described the target as both ‘ambitious and achievable, sensible and serious.’[1] The setting of this target indicates that Australia’s climate gurus fail to understand that human recycling of carbon dioxide as ‘emissions’ are not harmful to the planet, but are beneficial in both returning some of a life-supporting, vital trace gas back into an atmosphere that has been seriously depleted from much higher levels over millennia, and that the vast quantities of cheaply accessed, stored energy has allowed mankind wherewithal to live with endless cycles of feast and famine resulting from natural cyclical climate change.
This announcement comes just a few days after the release of a report by the Australian Climate Service, entitled Australia’s National Climate Risk Assessment (Report).[2] The purpose of the Report is ‘to provide insights on how climate risk affects different sectors and regions of the country.’ [3] The government is boasting that 254 “experts” worked on the document, suggesting that this impressive number of scientists must necessarily translate into quality and reliable predictions about the impact of climate change.
This Report is a deeply flawed document that fails to discuss the effects of carbon dioxide objectively and impartially on the climate. It states that ‘Expansion of forest area typically removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thus dampens global warming (IPCC, 2023)’.[4] This is demonstratively untrue, and any policy in favour of attempting to decarbonise a carbon and energy rich planet fails to acknowledge that the more carbon dioxide, the greener the planet!
But, more importantly, the Report assumes that the science of climate change is settled and that any doubts are odious examples of climate scepticism. Such a view is regrettable because the science is certainly not settled. We know more about the surface of the Moon than the bathymetry of the oceans that cover 70% of the globe whose surface temperatures govern local weather patterns in La Nina and El Nino Ocean current, cyclical occurrences, outside the room-control of mere mortals.
The Report is a hollow and result-oriented document. In uncritically assuming that the climate change cry is a real and unassailable proposition, it fails to address several critical issues, for example, does carbon dioxide really contribute to global warming? Or are the alleged weather-related climate disasters any different from those that happened in the past, both in terms of severity and frequency (requiring a comparative approach to answer the question)? What about the effects of government policy on the prosperity of Australia? Is it ethical to sell huge quantities of fossils fuels to China but disallow their use in Australia?
A comprehensive report by the US Department of Energy lays to rest the shibboleths and myths of the alarming climate doomsday headlines.[5] Specifically, the Report notes:
Elevated concentrations of CO2 directly enhance plant growth, globally contributing to “greening” the planet and increasing agricultural productivity … Climate change projections require scenarios of future emissions. There is evidence that scenarios widely-used in the impacts literature have overstated observed and likely future emission trends … The combination of overly sensitive models and implausible extreme scenarios for future emissions yields exaggerated projections of future warming. Most extreme weather events in the U.S. do not show long-term trends. Claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported.[6]
After reviewing the 257 pages of the Climate Risk Assessment Report, we find it speculative and without substance. Throughout the document, there are sentences, the meaning of which is unclear. A good example is the sentence: ‘These narratives lack the granularity needed to inform the possible sub-national scale changes.’ [7] The one good thing about the Report is that it contains a large list of all the people who assisted in the compilation of the speculative predictions – this is a handy catalogue of people who might describe this opinion piece as an example of disinformation.
The compilation of the Report has been an exercise in scaremongering. Still Mind Florida describes scaremongering as referring to ‘the strategic use of exaggerated or misleading information to incite fear, typically to gain attention, influence behavior, or drive agendas.’ It goes on to say that ‘A 2023 Journal of Health Communication study defines it as a tactic that exploits human instincts to prioritize threats, often amplifying perceived risks beyond objective reality’.[8]
In the real world, tide gauges at Fort Denison in Sydney show sea levels are rising at 65mm per century, which is the height of a matchbox, and of no risk to anyone. Three years ago, the huge Hunga volcanic eruption burst from the sea floor near Tonga, unpredicted and uncontrollable. Vast amounts of the principal greenhouse gas, water vapour, still exist in the upper atmosphere, still affecting weather patterns around the planet. It is heartening to see CSIRO is studying this ground-breaking event to map ‘the erupted volcano structure and studying life on the seafloor. To do this, they’re diving into the extensive scientific tool kit onboard RV Investigator.’ This is real science, not confabulations of pseudo-scientific reports ranking with the reputed 17th century debate of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.[9]
The main challenge is dispelling common myths about carbon dioxide, not just debating removal targets. Recent research indicates that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and challenges the link between fossil fuel use and cyclical increases in surface temperatures.
It is timely to assess the success, or lack of it, of the intergovernmental summits that have been held since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (“UNFCCC”) was signed in 1994. It is this summit that Australia proposes to hold in Adelaide in November 2026, at great cost to the Australian taxpayer.
The Paris Agreement, adopted at COP21 in December 2015, aspired to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels – an ambitious aspiration. The member countries of UNFCCC are expected to prepare proposals to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere – yet there is no empirical proof that this drives the temperature of Earth. The then Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, committed his government to the achievement of net-zero emissions by 2050. But a governmental commitment to net-zero emissions by the middle of this century does not satisfy the powerful climate change lobby. This lobby agitates in favour of a significant reduction of greenhouse emissions by 2035, which, according to present government predictions, announced just a few days ago, would be between 62 and 70 per cent. For example, the Leader of the Greens party, Larissa Waters, is an apoplectic critic of the announced target. Responding to the government’s announcement, she indicated that ‘this target is so appallingly low, it will not keep us safe.’[10]
There is no doubt that people are responsible for local environmental degradation. We see this in the debris, the plastic containers and cartons, and the deforestation, to reach this conclusion. Even in fashionable suburbs, people have illegally removed trees from their properties if they threaten the integrity of a house or block a view. The list of environmental ravages wrought by people could be lengthened ad infinitum.
Although environmental degradation is a real and serious issue, it does not mean that climate change is anthropogenic. It is useful to remind readers of the cyclical nature of climate change: warming and cooling cycles have always followed each other in history. For example, the Medieval Warm Period, which occurred in the 11th and 12th centuries, recorded temperatures in the North Atlantic region, not unlike those experienced today. At present, Antarctica experiences a cold period.
There is little doubt that mass hysteria, media hype, and indoctrination demean solid science. But there are dissenting views. For example, the World Climate Declaration notes:
There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly. … There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050.[11]
Although there have been annual United Nations-sponsored climate change conferences since 1994, the Parties have achieved little progress in their commitment to reducing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is because major economic powers, such as the People’s Republic of China, India, and Russia do not enthusiastically implement the diktats of these conferences. Moreover, the United States has dropped any pursuit of Net Zero emissions by 2050 altogether.
The Paris Agreement’s presumption that anthropogenic interference with the atmosphere can alter the climate of Planet Earth is fantasy and belongs in a science fiction novel. In pursuing decarbonisation aligned with the Agreement, countries worldwide have invested trillions of dollars, adhering to centrally determined policies. However, there remains a lack of credible evidence demonstrating that these efforts have led to measurable improvements or deterioration in climate conditions. On the contrary, this dreadful waste of resources has had terrible consequences for the economic well-being of the Western World, denying people access to cheap, affordable, and reliable energy.
Records of climate change on Earth can be found in geological formations, tree rings, ice cores, sediment deposits, and, more recently, in historical documents from the period of human habitation. Not one of the sometimes-cataclysmic changes in the climate of this planet can be attributed to the presence or levels of carbon dioxide in the thin atmosphere enveloping the planet.
Given the present knowledge of carbon dioxide, to sell the idea that any attempt to control human recycling of carbon dioxide could control the temperature of the Planet to within 1.5 Celsius over the next hundred years is the ultimate in mass hypnosis and hysteria. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at critically low levels and the myth that this trace gas drives the temperature of the Planet is readily exposed as such, a myth, a temporarily nice little earner for the promoters of solar panels and wind turbines that blight the landscape.
Nevertheless, most Australian politicians and a large swathe of the populace are captives to the ‘climate change’ rhetoric. The Western world has become hostage to IPCC commitments that threaten to destroy our entire energy system. Surely, it is time to stop pretending that by holding our collective breaths we can change the tides of climate that rule our environment.
Gabriël A. Moens AM is an emeritus professor of law at the University of Queensland. He served as pro vice-chancellor and is now dean at Murdoch University. In 2003, Moens was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal by the prime minister for services to education. He has taught extensively across Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States.
John McRobert is a civil engineer with over 60 years’ experience in the design, construction and maintenance of major infrastructure, and the study of extreme natural events on man-made structures. He founded CopyRight Publishing in 1987 to facilitate informed debate, publishing over 200 books, including seminal volumes by geologists and engineers on major Earth seismic events.
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