Rowan Dean:
Yes, it’s Emissions Impossible and it is our mission. We do accept it every single week to point out the insanity of the entire net-zero renewables, climate change madness. Joining us, I’m delighted to have back on the show, he’s been on the show many, many times. Great friend of the show, Peter Ridd. Peter, great to see you up there in Townsville. Thanks so much for coming on. We’ve dragged you away from a beautiful morning there on the Great Barrier Reef, but we had to talk about this with you, the article in The Australian this week. I’ll just briefly quote it. “After years of gloom and doom,” yep, we know all that, “Scientists and global activists no longer believe that the world’s coral reefs are facing a tipping point to extinction because of climate change. “A major news study,” and goes on and blah, blah, blah. “About one third of the Great Barrier Reef was judged to be resilient to the impacts of climate change,” and so on. Big surprise to you, Peter?
Peter Ridd:
Yeah, no, not really. I mean, who would imagine that a gentle warming of a degree or two would obliterate 99% of the corals and that actually some of the corals might just survive. But actually what you’re seeing here is if you actually dig down into the original report, they’re actually predicting in this super snazzy model that they produced that there’ll actually be more coral on the Great Barrier Reef in 2050 than there is today. So I’m not quite sure why they didn’t publicise that part of it-
Rowan Dean:
So say that again, Peter. Spell that out again. That there’ll be more?
Peter Ridd:
They’re actually predicting that there’ll be more coral in 2050 than today. So despite all the climate change, that’s what’s actually in their paper. Now they don’t publicise that a great deal because that would be embarrassing. So what you’re actually seeing here is a little bit like an extortionist who’s kidnapped a hostage for a ransom and the hostage is the Great Barrier Reef. And the problem is of an extortionist is the one thing you must never do is kill the hostage. And they’ve kind of done that with the Great Barrier Reef. Over the last 10 years, they’ve said it’s dead. And so all these people are thinking, “Well, there’s nothing that can be done now.” And now they’re realising, “Hey, we’ve made a bit of a mistake.” So they’re backpedalling so that there’s some hope that we can save some of the reef.
Because remember, the Great Barrier Reef for a lot of these guys, it’s just a job. The reef must always be dying, otherwise they don’t have a job and it’s just a mechanism where they can have net-zero and all the rest of it. So they’ve realised that it must be really, really sick but not completely dead. And that’s essentially what this paper was all about.
Rowan Dean:
I love it. Back paddling as well. I think back paddling is appropriate as well-
James Morrow:
Well, Peter though, this whole thing where we’re raging, raging against the dying of the reef, one of the things though that I imagine all of this talk about the reef dying, when it’s not dying, must have some fairly bad impacts on the people who are trying to make a living and make money and show off this great natural beauty to the world when the world is being told over and over again, “Oh, the reef is dying.” Has this had economic effects on Queensland and the tourism sector?
Peter Ridd:
Huge. We’ve actually tried to put a number on how many missing tourists we’ve got because we’re told all the time that the reef is dead. So tourists will often say, “Well, I’m not going to bother. I’ll come to Australia, but I won’t go to the Great Barrier Reef.” We’ve tried to put some numbers on it. Reef tourism is really underperforming. There’s no more tourists now than there was 20 years ago and yet to Australia, we’ve got almost a doubling, not quite. Great Ocean Road has had a huge increase in tourism. So we reckon there’s half a million missing tourists a year and that’s worth a little shy of a billion a year to the Queensland economy.
So yeah, it’s an absolute huge deal. If you then add on maybe another … I mean, the Queensland and federal government just handed out another $300 million to Save the Reef to all the hangers on on that. So the whole thing is costing us a fortune. And if you then add on all the extra regulations on farmers and things, which is very hard to actually quantify what that is, this is a multi-billion dollar problem that’s facing Queensland, plus the problem that we’re depressing all the children because they think the reef is bad and all those sorts of things.
Rowan Dean:
Rita?
Rita Panahi:
Have you received just very fulsome apologies in the last few days from all those colleagues who disparaged you, perhaps James Cook University, where you just faced all sorts of hostility for stating these facts that are now freely acknowledged?
Peter Ridd:
Yeah. Well, the one thing that makes people really hate you is if you’re right. That’s been a little bit of a problem. And of course, it’s not just this data. I mean, I was just looking at the latest data that’s almost finished for this financial year, the coral in the Great Barrier Reef. We now look like we’ve had 6 years in a row where every year we’ve had more coral than in any of the previous 35 years. So it’s a fabulous result.
And of course, one of the things which we’re trying to do now as part of my work with the Australian Environment Foundation is to try to convince The Queensland Liberal National government to start some science-checking to repeal some of the terrible red tape that’s affecting farmers and all the rest of it. So we’ll see how we get with that, but there is a little bit of stickiness there. So at the federal level, you’re seeing people like Matt Canavan and Angus Taylor winding back on the net-zero stuff. They’ve seen the revolution that’s happening in Australia and in other parts of the world, but at the state level, there’s not that same pressure to start pushing back on these terrible scientific institutions, which are frankly, I wouldn’t say they’re telling lies, but they’re doing very, very shoddy unchecked science is the best that you could say about them.
Rowan Dean:
And the world heritage, I think it was last year or the year before, didn’t put UNESCO, didn’t put the Great Barrier Reef onto the endangered list, but there’s a chance that they are revisiting that or not?
Peter Ridd:
Well, the UNESCO is the chief of the extortionists? So last year they said … They forced the government to hand over a lot of money to the, whatever, in my view, the corrupt scientific institutions and the NGOs to commit more to net-zero so that they may not declare the reef is endangered in July this year. So the big decision is in July this year. So they basically threatened the government, said, “If you don’t do this, we’re going to declare it as endangered and that will smash your tourist industry.” And my response is, let them declare it endangered because they’ve already smashed the tourist industry. And what we’ve got to do is spend that $300 million we’ve just handed over to what in my view, that some of these people are charlatans, we should spend that on a massive tourist campaign in England and America and Japan and China saying, “Come to the Great Barrier Reef. It is absolutely wonderful. We’ve got more record than ever and just about everything that you know about it, about the damage is simply untrue.” Wouldn’t that be a wonderful use of $300 million a year?
Rowan Dean:
I couldn’t agree more. We need a where the bloody hell are you tourist campaign for the Great Barrier Reef specifically. Peter Ridd, thanks so much for coming on. I agree 100%. And you were right as Rita said. Congratulations to you, Peter Ridd.
This transcript with Dr Peter Ridd talking on Outsiders – Sky News Australia from 21 June 2025 has been edited for clarity.
