“Bjørn Lomborg 1” by Photo by Emil Jupin – http://web.archive.org/web/20070224163136/www.lomborg.com/pictures.htm. Licensed under Copyrighted free use via Wikimedia Commons
The Australian Abbott government has granted Bjørn Lomborg $4 million, to set up a “consensus centre” at the University of West Australia.
According to The Guardian;
The Abbott government found $4m for the climate contrarian Bjørn Lomborg to establish his “consensus centre” at an Australian university, even as it struggled to impose deep spending cuts on the higher education sector.
A spokesman for the education minister, Christopher Pyne, said the government was contributing $4m over four years to “bring the Copenhagen Consensus Center methodology to Australia” at a new centre in the University of Western Australia’s business school.
The spokesman said the “Australia Consensus Centre” was a proposal put forward by the “university and Dr Lomborg’s organisation”.
Sources have told Guardian Australia the establishment of the centre had come as a surprise even to senior staff in the business school, who were unaware that the centre was being established until shortly before it was announced this month.
The Guardian’s description of Bjørn Lomborg as a climate “contrarian” seems a little strong – in my opinion Lomborg is more of a lukewarmer. Lomborg is concerned about CO2, but he is highly critical of climate scaremongering, and regularly receives favourable coverage on WUWT for his moderate views.
The decision to site the new centre at the University of West Australia is interesting. Professor Lewandowsky was based in the University of West Australia, before he moved to Bristol in England. In 2014, Steve McIntyre accused the Vice Chancellor of UWA of violating the Australian Code of Conduct for the Responsible Practice of Research and the UWA’s own code of conduct, over a refusal to release some of Lewandowsky’s data.
Former chief commissioner of the defunct Climate Commission, Tim Flannery and his private climate council seem furious over the Lomborg grant, calling it: