UWA denies govt claim Lomborg centre was its idea

The University of Western Australia has denied Abbott Government claims that the university was responsible for bringing Bjorn Lomborg's 'consensus centre' to Australia, The Guardian reports

According to the newspaper, a UWA spokesman said the university was approached last year by the government - which is contributing $4m over four years to the centre - to bring the centre to its Perth campus.

That goes against claims from Education Minister Christopher Pyne's office, which last week said the centre was a proposal put forward by the “university and Dr Lomborg’s organisation”.

“I can confirm that the university was approached by the federal government,” the UWA spokesman told The Guardian.

Lomborg has been accused of cherrypicking data to understate the threat of climate change, most recently saying the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report was alarmist citing the IPCC's Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6 degrees, a measure for projected emissions, which predicts as little as a 1-degree rise by the end of the century. However, that scenario is based on governments implementing greatly enhanced emissions reduction policies - such as widespread carbon pricing - for which Lomborg has argued against.