Doubting Ted fuels green rage

- National - theage.com.au

OPPOSITION Leader Ted Baillieu has outraged environmental groups by saying he could not be sure global warming was causing climate change and Victoria could do little to affect global warming if it was occurring.
When asked if he thought global warming was a problem, he told The Sunday Age: "I think there is climate change about us … I am not wise enough to conclude as to what causes the climate change.
"Some say that we had a period of climate change for the last 50 years that was unusual and we have just reverted back to normal patterns — and I am not in a position to judge that one way or another," he said.
He said Australia had had its droughts before — "central Australia is a desert".
Mr Baillieu's comments come ahead of a visit to Melbourne by former US vice-president Al Gore, who will speak at the Arts Centre on global warming in November. Mr Gore was in Sydney last week for the premiere of the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, in which he stars.
Environment Victoria executive director Marcus Godinho said Mr Baillieu was one of the world's last global warming sceptics. "If it wasn't so serious, it would be comical," he said.
Mr Godinho said the Liberals had offered no policies to tackle global warming and climate change.
But global warming sceptics have welcomed the Liberal leader's comments.
Ray Evans, from the Lavoisier Group, which is critical of the global warming argument, said Mr Baillieu was on the right track.
"I think Ted Baillieu is absolutely right in refusing to join the greenhouse religious mania," he said. "The argument that carbon dioxide is increasing global temperatures is a theory for which there is no theoretical foundation and for which there is no evidence."
Mr Baillieu's comments come as a draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that scientists continue to forecast an increase in temperature because of global warming. The report found scientists predicted about a 3 degree rise in the average global daily temperature by the end of the century if no action was taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The increased temperatures are expected to reduce rainfalls across most of Australia.
The report is bad news for Victoria, where water storage levels at this point are critically low.
The Greens energy spokesman, Louis Delacretaz, said Mr Baillieu had not examined the issue of global warming closely enough. "There is overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is happening," he said.
While Mr Baillieu was uncertain about global warming, he said Victoria should still cut greenhouse gas emissions. But he opposed the Government's new Victorian Renewable Energy Target scheme or the establishment of a state-based national emissions trading scheme.