Clive "Mining Billionaire" Palmer now accepts the Inconvenient truth

Wh… what just happened?

Say what you like about Clive Palmer, the man knows how to make a scene.

It's a head turner when one turns up at a press conference with former US vice president Al Gore - as in An Inconvenient Truth and lots of appearances on Futurama (for which his daughter Kristin was a staff writer, in case you've ever wondered "how the hell did they get the goddamn Veep?"). He has ridden the mighty Moon Worm, you know.

And yes, it was a big showy fuck you to the Abbott government first and foremost, because Palmer is not a man who forgets a grudge. However, if the trade off is forcing Australia to adopt an effective environmental policy then hey: bring on the showboating!

Gore was in Australia to attend the Climate Reality Leadership Corps training programme in Melbourne and, we're guessing, has no idea who Palmer is. But that didn't stop him ramping up the good-feeling rhetoric, calling this “an extraordinary moment in which Australia, the US and the rest of the world is finally beginning to confront the climate crisis in a meaningful way”, saying many countries were beginning to take significant action to reduce emissions."

No, seriously: what the fuck happened?

Let's start with the bad news: the Carbon "Tax" is dead. Sorry Ms Gillard, your unfairly-spotty legacy is tarnished further.

With the support of the three Palmer United senators, the legislation will be scrapped when it comes back to the upper house next month - but there's a catch. The government will have to commit to an emissions trading scheme, which as "environment" minister Greg Hunt declared "was not and is not our policy", but what choice does he have? None is what.

This ETS, however, will not exactly kick in any time soon under the Palmer plan: indeed, not until our major trading partners have one. Specifically, "China, the United States, the European Union, Japan and Korea."

That's all pretty reasonable: Japan has a regional scheme in place, and the US and China are both in the processing of turning their own regional schemes into national ones. But the fact that Clive appeared to be unaware that the EU and Korea already have functioning emissions trading schemes is a bit of an oversight.

A larger oversight is this: Australia has had an emissions trading scheme since 2013, so… er, what is he proposing, exactly? Dismantling and rebuilding? Turning it off and on again?

What's absolutely 100% awesome is the following:

PUP will block the abolition of the The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the already-profitable low-interest loan provider to renewable energy research that the Coalition vehemently hate - not least because it actually does use the power of the free market to make positive environmental change, as per all Abbott's blathering.

PUP are also blocking the dissolution of the independent Climate Change Authority, which is so freakin' unexpected and amazing news that it's hard to express without whooping loudly.

They're also refusing to budge on the Renewable Energy Target remaining at 20%, of which Hunt's office had planned to reset at 5% and then deny funding toward the achievement.

veya_victaous wrote:Clive's not really a conservative...  He is Mining Billionaire but often is in conflict with the million billion tyrant Gina Rinehart who openly support slavery and has even tried to use the fact she can (and basically has) bought slaves in Africa as reason to reduce the minimum wage here       
Clive is Odd, as he obviously wants people to like him and has enough money where he can do crazy stuff and has a history of success that makes people willing to follow him.  
Plus Did I mention the robot Dinosaurs and Titanic 2   ::D:: ::D:: ::D::  he is basically the REAL life John Hammond
http://au.ign.com/articles/2013/07/25/an-australian-millionaire-is-actually-building-jurassic-park