Climate Change – What are we doing about it?

FIRST Kevin Rudd tells you we're heating to hell when the planet has actually cooled for eight years.

Now he's claiming that the colossal tax on emissions he's imposing to "stop" this (non) warming will create more jobs than it will kill.

And if you believe that, you deserve precisely what you're going to get.

Yesterday the Prime Minister gave a speech to the national Labour conference that showed he's feeling more heat than he's let on from the sceptics he's claimed barely exist.

"The climate change sceptics constantly scaremonger about the possible loss of jobs through the transition to a lower carbon economy," he complained.

"But they constantly fail to talk about the new clean energy jobs of the future which will arise from the introduction of the carbon pollution reduction scheme, the renewable energy target and energy efficiency measures in the future."

In fact, Rudd announced, he'd now spend yet another $94 million (of money he no longer has) to "create 50,000 new green jobs, traineeships and apprenticeships". Sound good?

Trouble is, just for starters, this doesn't come close to replacing the jobs his green plans are expected to kill.

The Minerals Council estimates that just Rudd's emissions trading scheme-effectively a tax on all that's gassy, from power to cows-will cost 23,500 mining jobs alone by 2020, and three times more later. Retailers warn of job losses, too, as do manufacturers.

The Energy Supply Association even predicts "a number of power stations will need to close". Power bills will soar.

Even allowing for special pleading by industries wanting billions in compensation, the job losses will be big. So will the jobs Rudd promised yesterday make up for it? Well, let's see what they are, and what they'll pay.

Oops. Turns out these positions will actually cost us $96 million, not make us richer, as mining and manufacturing jobs tend to. But maybe they'll eventually morph into real jobs, right?

Wrong. Here's the breakdown of the 50,000 positions Rudd is "creating":

First, he'll train 4000 jobless to install his free pink batts, a skill you can pick up in days for jobs that can last only as long as Rudd's cash. No real jobs there.

Written by Andrew Bolt Journalist Herald Sun