Climate change is a trick used by the United Nations in a bid for world domination, according to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s chief business advisor.
The chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman, made the allegations in a column published in the Australian on Friday.
Under the subheading, “The international body’s real agenda is a new world order under its control”, Mr Newman wrote that the real agenda behind the push for climate change action was “concentrated political authority”.
“This is not about facts or logic,” he said.
“It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN. It is opposed to capitalism and freedom.”
'It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN'
Published to coincide with a visit by Christiana Figueres, who heads up the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, Mr Newman’s article alleged that Australians are being fed “dud predictions”.
He said that Ms Figueres would prolong poverty and illiteracy among the world’s poorest through her “centralised power ambitions”.
"It's a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error. It's not surprising," he wrote.
It is not the first time Mr Newman has made controversial comments on climate change.
In a speech to ABC staffers in 2010, the then-Chairman of the ABC said climate change was "group-think".
When asked if he was a climate change denier, Mr Newman replied that he was "an agnostic".
'There are a lot of question marks about some of the fundamental data'
"I have always been an agnostic and I will remain an agnostic until I've found compelling evidence on one side or the other that will move me," he told ABC Radio in 2010.
"I think that what seems fairly clear to me is that the climate science is still being developed. There are a lot of question marks about some of the fundamental data which has been used to build models that requires caution."
Mr Newman’s latest comments come amid reports that the Abbott Government and Labor are expected to agree on a pared-back renewable energy target.
A long-awaited meeting over the target is due to be held in Melbourne on Friday, when the coalition is expected to concede ground.
The government wants to slash the legislated 41,000-gigawatt hour target, amid concerns it would overreach 20 per cent and push up power prices.
Until Thursday it was reluctant to go higher than a 32,000GWh target. But cabinet is believed to have authorised Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane to go to 33,000GWh.
With AAP.
