From Howard to Abbott, senior Coalition figures have repeatedly dismissed climate science – favouring belief over evidence and weakening public debate.

What is it with conservative ex-Prime Ministers of Australia when they get in front of Nigel Lawson’s misleadingly and cynically titled Global Warming Policy Foundation – an avowedly sceptical forum on matters of climate change?

In 2013 John Howard spoke at the Foundation in London, pouring cold water on climate change and noting that he felt “instinctively” that claims about the future impacts of climate change were exaggerated. But instinct, or gut feeling (or political preference), are surely not what counts. What counts are evidence and reasoning.

Howard in his speech in 2013 went on to say that those who argued that climate change might be taking us in problematic directions were “sanctimonious”, had “nakedly political agendas” and were trying to “intimidate” politicians. Not only were they wrong, he was saying, they were self-serving.

A few years later, Tony Abbott used the same forum to push further his 2009 statement that ‘Climate science is crap’. This time he argued that warming is probably a good thing, partly because of its potential positive effects on plant growth and therefore on agricultural productivity, and partly because cold snaps kill more people around the globe than do heatwaves. And he made the statement that photographs of Manly Beach over the past century –........

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