"Temperatures in Australia have only increased by 0.3 degrees over the past century, not the 1 degree usually claimed," is one of Abbott's statements. Global warming is obvious to the overwhelming majority of scientists, despite what a few deniers would tell us. Credit:Daniel Munoz According to the bureau and CSIRO's State of the Climate 2016, here's what we're seeing in Australia:

'Photos show no sealevel rise' Staying local, Abbott has this to say about sea-level rise: "More than 100 years of photography at Manly Beach in my electorate does not suggest that sea levels have risen despite frequent reports from climate alarmists that this is imminent." Consider, first, the lean likelihood of avid snappers catching the same point of the tide at the same place over the years. Imagine, too, the future lawsuits when owners of coastal developments that have been washed away submit to the court grainy, faded photographs explaining they had no idea what they were buying into. Tony Abbott has made another pitch declining the significance to climate change. Credit:Daniel Munoz

Coastal sea-level rise can be quirky, but for those wanting to project future development, Geoscience Australia provides projections, even for Manly. In the meantime, this readily available information from CSIRO showing global sea-level rise is accelerating: Illustration: Matt Golding Abbott might want to acquaint himself with the reasons for that rise in sea levels, including the well-understood fact 93 per cent of the extra heat being trapped by extra greenhouse gases ends up in the ocean.

A warmer ocean, not surprisingly expands. The melting ice caps, glaciers and sea ice absorb about 2 per cent of that extra heat and most of that ice melt ends up in the ocean, lifting their levels. While just 2.3 per cent of the extra warming ends up in the atmosphere and 2.1 per cent in the land, that happens to be where most of the temperature readings are made and where our own lives are lived out. Blame the sun So here's Abbott's interpretation of what's been going on, temperature wise: "Certainly, no big change has accompanied the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration over the past century from roughly 300 to roughly 400 parts per million or from 0.03 to 0.04 per cent."

The following chart from that website helps to knock a few of Abbott's misleading interpretations on the head: Solar radiation has in fact been on a cooling trend for the past three decades, and yet temperatures have continued to climb. And they are clearly much closer to 1 degree higher over the past century than 0.3 degrees.

'More good than harm'

"At least so far, it's climate change policy that's doing harm; climate change itself is probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm," he said in his speech. Australians happen to live in a nation with a highly variable climate, especially for rain. There are ample signs of recent heatwaves, including in this spring, to have people worried with reason about the threat of worse bushfires, among other challenges. Recent research pointing to Sydney and Melbourne likely to have 50-degree days in coming summers was dismissed as "groupthink" by Abbott on Fairfax Media's 2GB. As the bureau and CSIRO note in their report, though, Australia has been reporting a big increase in the number of extreme heat events, with all the stresses on the health of humans (and other creatures) that they bring:

As the report notes, extreme days are defined as those above the 99th percentile of each month from the years 1910 to 2015. "In 2013 there were 28 days over this threshold," the report said. "This compares to the period prior to 1950 when more than half the years had no extreme days." Abbott's speech made little of the fact it was during his two-year stint as prime minister that Australia signed up to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 per cent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. The pledge "was a compromise based on the advice that we could achieve it largely through efficiencies, without additional environmental imposts, using the highly successful emissions reduction fund; because, as I said at the time, the last thing we want to do is strengthen the environment (but) damage our economy".

What's 'Herculean' in Chinese? Quite apart from the ERF being "highly successful" (see here or here), Abbott goes on to say this: "Even if reducing emissions really is necessary to save the planet, our effort, however Herculean, is barely better than futile; because Australia's total annual emissions are exceeded by just the annual increase in China's." Well, it turns out China's emissions have actually been flat for several years. Whether the recent plateau holds or starts to climb again remains to be seen. Concern about urban pollution and the massive construction that has already filled many of the major cities with ample subway lines, highways and tower blocks suggest returning to the run-up of emissions during the 2000-2010 is unlikely. Perhaps the following chart from Climate Change News, though, is a better pointer to the trends in China, the world's largest carbon emitter:

Loading It shows annual growth of energy consumption. Fossil fuel use has a diminishing share of the extra energy needed to drive what will soon be the world's largest economy. Giving the cost of solar and wind energy continues to decline at a rapid rate - while fossil fuel extraction is if anything getting more costly as easy to access resources disappear - it's a fair bet if China's energy demand does pick up, coal and oil aren't likely to provide the lion's share of extra supply.