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global warming isn't happening or if it did it would be good for the environment....

For years one of the most hazardous places to stand was between mining billionaire Andrew Forrest and a microphone. These days the even-wealthier Gina Rinehart is challenging Forrest on visibility and hyperbole.

Most have become very familiar with Forrest eulogising about the climate-induced end of the planet. At the other extreme, Rinehart is sermonising about the catastrophic effect that environmentalists and leftist “watermelons” are having on Australian industry, farmers and even schoolchildren.

 

War of the megaphones: Australian billionaires push their climate agendas

BY Elizabeth Knight

 

She believes kids are being fed “garbage” about climate and giant green incinerators are devouring taxpayer money.

Watermelon isn’t just a fruit, it is also a derogatory term for climate activists who are seen as having left-wing goals, meaning they are “green on the outside” (environmentalism) but “red on the inside” (socialism).

 

Rinehart, whose views may be invigorated by having a like-minded Donald Trump in power, isn’t taking any green prisoners.

She used a rousing speech over the weekend (delivered by one of her managers from the helm of an iron ore tanker), to outline the perils of the slavish pursuit of net zero emissions and take a long-winded swipe at the government for paying disproportionate attention to decarbonisation with insufficient regard to the costs it imposes on business and those struggling with the cost of living.

Rinehart has long occupied the ultra-conservative end of the political spectrum, so her politics on climate are not new.

But the decibel level of her arguments and her preparedness to aim for a larger audience is what has put her in “share of voice” competition with her climate nemesis Forrest.

Let’s not forget that both have a voice thanks to the billions they have made extracting iron ore.

Rinehart wants to whip up a frenzy from the large number of unheard Australians – encouraging them to use TikTok or Reddit, send letters or call radio shock jocks to pressure the government to abandon emissions reduction policies that she says are increasing our power bills and forcing pensioners to choose between rent and food or medical treatment.

“If government truly cared about its duty to Australians, they would stand up to the noisy watermelons and the far left,” Rinehart wrote. “We need to help them, don’t we?”

It’s fair to say Forrest has become a little quieter recently, coinciding with setbacks to his ambitious green hydrogen plans after questions about their financial viability. But he remains true to his cause and won’t ever stop campaigning.

His iron ore company Fortescue had committed $US6.2 billion ($9.6 billion) to renewables to reach its decarbonisation goals by 2030.

 

So it was curious that Rinehart’s recent speech didn’t single out Forrest or Fortescue (unless he is one of the watermelons to whom she refers).

Instead, fellow iron ore miner and joint venture partner Rio Tinto received a reprimand, alongside BHP, for investing in climate abatement technologies.

She wants the shareholders of these companies to think about the green of their money rather than the environment.

“Mum and dad shareholders, what happened to your most recent half-yearly dividends from BHP, Rio and others, lowest in the last seven or eight years? Your dividends are being sacrificed on the green altar,” Rinehart wrote.

“How many billions are each of those public companies spending on net zero?”

Rio Tinto is looking at spending $US5 billion to $US6 billion over the eight years to 2030 and BHP is planning for about $US4 billion over seven years. These might sound like big numbers, but they are spread over several years and should be measured against BHP’s 2025 revenue of $US51.3 billion and Rio’s revenue of $US26.9 billion for the first half of 2025.

”Billions and billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, and billions more of shareholders’ money, is being thrown into this transition, or what I call the huge green incinerator,” Rinehart added in the speech.

“An incinerator gobbling up more taxpayers’ money for charging stations for EVs, hidden subsidies, luxe green gabfests for those enjoying the green trough, handouts for studying even dubious things if the green theme is included, and rescue packages for industries that can no longer afford the increased government burdens.”

Her passion for mining is now clearly matched by her hyperbolic disdain for the government’s environmental policies.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/war-of-the-megaphones-australian-billionaires-push-their-climate-agendas-20251125-p5ni9u.html

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

methodologies....

 

Fossil fuel CO₂ emissions hit record high in 2025
by University of Exeter

edited by Stephanie Baum, reviewed by Robert Egan

 

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels are projected to rise by 1.1% in 2025—reaching a record high, according to new research by the Global Carbon Project.

The 2025 Global Carbon Budget projects 38.1 billion tons of fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions this year.

Decarbonization of energy systems is progressing in many countries—but this is not enough to offset the growth in global energy demand.

With projected emissions from land-use change (such as deforestation) down to 4.1 billion tons in 2025, total CO2emissions are projected to be slightly lower than last year.

With the end of the 2023–24 El Niño weather pattern—which causes heat and drought in many regions—the land "sink" (absorption of CO2 by ) has recovered this year to the pre-El Niño level.

This year's report—published alongside a new paper in the journal Nature—examines the  on the land and ocean carbon sinks. It finds that 8% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1960 is due to climate change weakening the land and ocean sinks.

The report says the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5°C is "virtually exhausted."

With no sign of the urgently needed decline in global emissions, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere—and the dangerous impacts of global warming—continue to increase.

The research team included the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia (UEA), CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich (LMU), Alfred-Wegener-Institut and more than 90 other institutions around the world.

"With CO2 emissions still increasing, keeping global warming below 1.5°C is no longer plausible," said Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, who led the study.

"The remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C, 170 billion tons of carbon dioxide, will be gone before 2030 at the current emission rate. We estimate that climate change is now reducing the combined land and ocean sinks—a clear signal from Earth that we need to dramatically reduce emissions."

Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor at UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said, "Efforts to tackle climate change are visible, with 35 countries succeeding in reducing their emissions while growing their economies, twice as much as a decade ago, and important progress in reducing reliance on  elsewhere.

"Progress is still much too fragile to translate into the sustained decreases in global emissions needed to tackle climate change. The emerging impact of climate change on the carbon sinks is worrying and stresses further the need for urgent action."

Glen Peters, Senior Researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research, said, "It is 10 years since the Paris Agreement was negotiated, and despite progress on many fronts, fossil CO2 emissions continue their relentless rise. Climate change and variability are also having a discernible effect on our natural climate sinks. It is clear countries need to lift their game. We now have strong evidence that clean technologies help reduce emissions while being cost effective compared to fossil alternatives."

Professor Julia Pongratz, at LMU's Department of Geography, said, "The reduction in land-use emissions demonstrates the success that environmental policies can achieve. Deforestation rates in the Amazon have declined and are at their lowest level this season since 2014. Yet the sweeping fires in 2024 revealed how sensitive the ecosystem remains if we don't also limit global warming."

Other key findings from the 2025 Global Carbon Budget include:

  • China's emissions in 2025 are projected to increase by 0.4%—growing more slowly than in recent years, due to a moderate growth in energy consumption combined with an extraordinary growth in renewable energy.
  • India's emissions are projected to increase by 1.4%—also slower than recent trends. An early monsoon reduced cooling requirements in the hottest months. Combined with strong growth in renewables, this led to very low growth in coal consumption.
  • Emissions are projected to grow in the U.S. (+1.9%) and the European Union (0.4%) in 2025. Emissions in these regions have declined in recent years, but colder weather and other factors led to an increase in 2025.
  • Projected emissions in Japan, provided this year for the first time, are down 2.2% in line with recent trends.
  • Emissions for the rest of the world are projected to increase by 1.1%.
  • The projected rise in fossil CO2 emissions in 2025 is driven by all fuel types: coal +0.8%, oil +1%, natural gas +1.3%.
  • Emissions are projected to increase by 6.8% for international aviation (exceeding pre-COVID levels) but to remain flat for international shipping.
  • Over the 2015–2024 period, emissions from permanent deforestation remain high at around 4 billion tons of CO2 per year, while permanent removals through re/afforestation and forest regrowth offsets about half of the permanent deforestation emissions.
  • Total CO2 emissions—the sum of fossil and emissions—have grown more slowly in the past decade (0.3% per year), compared to the previous decade (1.9% per year).
  • The remaining carbon budget to limit  to 1.5°C is virtually exhausted. The remaining budget for 1.5°C is 170 billion tons of CO2, equivalent to four years at the 2025 emissions levels.
  • The combined effects of climate change and deforestation have turned Southeast Asian and large parts of South American tropical forests from CO2 sinks to sources.
  • The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is set to reach 425.7 ppm in 2025, 52% above pre-industrial levels.

The Global Carbon Budget report, produced by an international team of more than 130 scientists, provides an annual, peer-reviewed update, building on established methodologies in a fully transparent manner.

The 2025 edition (the 20th annual report) is published in the journal Earth System Science Data as a preprint, and will be published later as a peer-reviewed paper.

https://phys.org/news/2025-11-fossil-fuel-emissions-high.html

 

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20251015-co2-in-the-atmosphere-up-by-record-amount-in-2024-un-1