Simon Birmingham is a South Australian Liberal senator and for mine is one of the smartest brains in the Coalition or, for that matter, the Senate, and the sooner the party leadership makes uses of his talents on the frontbench the better.

Last night he rose to speak on the package of CPRS bills and gave a speech that any climate sceptics – should they be genuine sceptics rather than outright denialists – ought to read and ponder.  Birmingham supports his party’s position on the bills and recognises the Government’s cynical timing.

It is sad that this government has sought to force upon the parliament very cynical timing in the consideration of their legislation relating to an ETS … bringing it back to this place for these last two sitting weeks of the year, exactly three months later, smacks of exactly what it is: rank political opportunism.

Nevertheless, he wants to see a deal reached to pass the CPRS.  “I hope that our sensible, sound amendments to fix this legislation are accepted because, ultimately, I hope to be voting for this legislation.”

But it is Birmingham’s broader rationale for taking action that serves as an effective and clear articulation of why even sceptics should endorse taking action to mitigate climate change.

…I do not know whether climate change is real.  I do not know whether human impact on climate change is real.  I am not a climate scientist.  I have never pretended to be.  I also note that, so far as I am aware, nobody in this place or the other place pretends to be a climate scientist or qualified in such fields.  I note that many come to this debate with opinions that are doubtful of the veracity of climate science… I hope that they are right, because if they are right then the future for the planet looks much rosier than it does for those who take a far dimmer view of what climate science and climate change could possibly mean.

… with the exponentially increasing global population of people around the world, all of whom quite rightly aspire to have ever-improved lifestyles, we must be aware that this growth of populace and growth of consumption with it will of course have some impact on the environment in which we live.  I am reminded of Newton’s old law of motion: that for every action that is always an opposite and equal reaction.  In my mind, continually emitting ever increasing volumes of any one chemical compound into the atmosphere must ultimately have some impact.

For these reasons I believe, as I have said in my previous contributions on these bills, that we should give the planet the benefit of the doubt and opt for action ahead of inaction when it comes to climate change mitigation.  It is, however, a case of making sure that we get that action right.

The conservative position on climate change must surely be one of risk management – the risk of not taking action is far greater than the risk of taking action in the event the climate change hypothesis proves flawed.  Like conservation, which had its historical roots in the conservative side of politics, climate change action should be as much at home on Right as on the Left.