Oz Shadow Climate Minister Warns Queensland - Right-Wing Base - 2B Hardest Hit By Climate Impacts
The opposition climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has warned almost one million Australians will lose their jobs if runaway climate change decimates the environment and the economy – with Queensland bearing the brunt of any failure to act. Bowen used a speech in Brisbane on Thursday night to warn Queenslanders they would pay the price for the federal Coalition’s failure to act in accordance with climate science, with half a million jobs lost in the state and a forecast economic contraction of 8% by 2050 and 14% by 2070.
Since taking the portfolio in late January, Labor’s new climate spokesman has been concentrating his advocacy in Queensland and other regional areas that swung to the Coalition in the 2019 election, in part because of successful scaremongering by Liberal and National MPs about the costs of climate action. Bowen has reconfigured Labor’s messaging on climate policy to emphasise both the economic risks of failing to act and the upsides of new jobs created during the transition to a low emissions economy.
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Ahead of the summit, a coalition of environment, aid and church groups have taken out full-page advertisements in newspapers urging Morrison to increase his level of ambition and provide concrete commitments. Bowen noted the Liberal MP and former diplomat Dave Sharma had said recently there was a key role for the diplomatic corps in re-assuring the world the climate wars were now over in Australia.
Ed. - Liberal Party in Australia - Republican Party stateside.
“If Mr Sharma thinks the climate wars are over, he might want to tell his government colleagues, especially here in Queensland, because his colleagues, particularly but not exclusively in the National party, continue to run a climate-based culture war designed to cynically engage in identity politics – and Queensland is its focus,” the Labor frontbencher said. “The basis of this toxically dishonest campaign is to claim that action on climate change comes at the cost of the Queensland jobs and the Queensland economy.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/15/queenslanders-will-be-hardest-hit-if-australia-fails-to-act-on-climate-change-labor-warns
