Abbott and Wong fired up over climate

With the climate change debate set to heat up again when parliament resumes next
week, key protagonists Penny Wong and Tony Abbott are already trading blows.

The opposition leader has confirmed he'll reveal the coalition's climate change
policy on Tuesday.
It will deliver the same carbon pollution reduction as Labor's emissions trading
scheme but for a "comparatively modest cost", he told a Young Liberals convention in
Adelaide on Saturday.
Mr Abbott also mocked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for declaring climate change was the
greatest moral challenge of our time.
"It's an important issue but even if dire predictions are right and average
temperatures around the globe rise by four degrees over the century, it's still not
the 'great moral challenge' of our time - as Mr Rudd has described it on 14
occasions - let alone the 'greatest' moral challenge of our time - as Mr Rudd has
described it at least four times," Mr Abbott said.
"Adapting to changing rainfall patterns, for example, will be hard but it won't
supplant the threat of war, injustice, disease and want as the biggest problems with
which humanity must grapple."
Mr Abbott said Mr Rudd and others resorted to the language of morality in order to
cast opponents as "bad people" rather than simply wrong, which was a case of
"intellectual bullying".
But Climate Change Minister Penny Wong wasn't about to soften her language.
She immediately labelled the opposition leader's speech as more of the same from a
climate change denier.
"We shouldn't be surprised if Mr Abbott doesn't think a four-degree temperature rise
is a big deal because we know what he thinks about climate change," she told
reporters in Adelaide.
"In his own words, Mr Abbott thinks climate change is 'absolute crap'."
Senator Wong said a four-degree increase would leave the Murray-Darling Basin -
which Mr Abbott says should be controlled by the commonwealth - beyond salvation.
"It'd be cactus," she said.
The Great Barrier Reef and the tourist industry which relies on it would be
"devastated", while South Australians would experience "double the number of days
over 35 degrees".
Labor will reintroduce its emissions trading scheme into parliament on Tuesday.
However, Mr Abbott says the coalition has the numbers to vote it down again in the
Senate - and that's exactly what it will do.
He says the coalition's policy will rely on incentives not penalties, with a focus
on direct action to reduce emissions.
"The coalition's policy will be easy to understand, will directly address the
problem and will have a comparatively modest cost," he said.
In contrast, Labor's approach was "almost impossible to explain, purports to reduce
emissions by raising prices, and will impose a $12 billion a year drag on the whole
economy".
"I suspect these contrasting polices will become a metaphor for the two parties'
different approaches to almost everything," Mr Abbott said.
The Climate Institute's chief executive John Connor said it was reckless and
ridiculous for Mr Abbott to be relaxed about a four-degree rise in global
temperatures.
"He's missed the link that such an increase will, in fact, lead to greater
insecurity and instability around the world and particularly in our region.
"It will lead to very significant public health impacts and disease."