The biggest problem with Climate Change | Konstantin Kisin

and I'll give you an example a very very senior journalist in this country said to me the other day he trying to put together a piece on the utter dishonesty we're getting from our leadership at the moment about climate change the dishonesty he's talking about is not to argue with the SES it's something else I've been saying for a long time guess this issue of trust we've got a huge debot going on in Australia at the moment about the cost of living and governments are pretending they can solve it with all the solutions that are going to make it worse by the way but here's the great Li of course if you're worried about emissions you're saying human beings are overdoing it and we need to reduce your living standards and so you're saying to young people who are worried about climate change um we'll get you a secure future without being honest and saying actually we've got to lower your living standards there is no other way around this this talk about you know a new economy built on Renewables being prosperity for everybody nobody really believes that there's no leadership leadership would demand that you actually level with people and say we've got to make these massive changes if that's what you believe and they will result in lower living standards it is not true that Renewables are cheaper in this country for example than coal they're not and they never will be and no one even points out for example these massive solar funds we're building you got to go and replace them all within 20 years replace them all so there's this incredible walking of both sides of the Street I guess my question to you is do you think people sort of instinctively understand that they're being misled uh some people do and some people don't and if you remember my speech at Oxford Union which did crazy numbers online in which this is the the great tragedy of my career I keep getting recognition and and opportunities because I'm saying really obvious things that everybody knows I'm just one of the few people prepared to say them all I said in that speech all I said in terms of the climate issue was poor people do not want to stay poor that means they're going to keep growing their economies and that means that the way to solve climate change is going to be through technology and getting better at resource efficiency Etc you are not going to get people to reduce their living standards you're just not and and everybody broadly speaking knows it when they hear it but you don't hear it said because it's unsayable in the public space when I when I watch that I immediately thought uh Indonesia fourth most populous nation on Earth rising out of poverty in many ways in many ways and admirable people doing amazing things you know great challenges but my understanding is there somewhere between 100 and 150 million people in that country still spending 90% of their income on food so given the cheap energy is critical to the cost of food the slightest Interruption and suddenly you're pushing people back into his situation where they can't feed their kids they don't care about the environment when that happens they care about feeding their kids I had um lunch with uh the Indian ambassador to the UK a few a few months ago actually after I gave that speech and I asked him what do you think about what I've said and and he said when dur when India became independent in 1947 life expectancy average life expectancy I think was 32 1947 within the lifetime of many people who are alive today today it's over 70 how how did that happen it happened because they're burning fossil fuels and they're using energy to make the lives of their people better to make sure that they infants survive longer and they've massively cut infant mortality you think they want to go back to 1947 don't don't be silly this is nonsense so the idea that we're going to prevent billions of people which is who is causing most of this uh emissions now to to reduce their standards of living to watch their children die in agony from preventable disease or lack of medical care or whatever it's not going to happen so we should stop pretending but again this is a question of leadership and I just I think we've got ourselves locked into a vicious cycle the media wants to present politicians as Liars therefore you get politicians who are liars we then have contempt for them them no one then wants to go into politics who's honest and it just goes round and round and round and somebody is going to have to come along and break that cycle well so do the better it really is they're going to have to be people who clearly understand that the Western experiment has produced the best results for people even if you talk about that doubling of Lipan in the developing world because it's essentially happened under the stewardship of the West and the Americans leading it whether we like it or not a reasonably stable Global Order since end of the second world war especially given that the Cold War didn't develop into a hot one it's been about scientific research and not many Australians know this but the role we played in The Green Revolution doubling those large bans in the impoverished part of the world it's the one area where Australia is HS way above its weight even today we're amongst the seven biggest investors in agricultural research for the benefit of the L will off six countries and the Gates Foundation uh but it's also been affordable available energy all of those factors they're all at risk and nobody's talking about the [Music] trade-offs

Channel: John Anderson

Views: 391,341

Keywords: John Anderson, John Anderson Conversation, Interview, John Anderson Interview, Policy debate, public policy, public debate, John Anderson Direct, Direct, Conversations

Id: 0WQCGvNp2K4

Length: 5min 42sec (342 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024