claim: unadjusted data suggests that temperatures in Australia have only increased by 0.3 degrees over the past century, not the 1 degree usually claimed
evidence: Former Australian prime minister and current MP Tony Abbott has said no "big change" in our climate has resulted from increasing carbon dioxide levels in the past century, and called global warming "beneficial" in the same speech. [...] Abbott careens through accusations of "adjusted" records, the "downplayed" impact of urban heat islands and "slanted" data sets. "Unadjusted data suggests ... temperatures in Australia have only increased by 0.3 degrees over the past century, not the 1 degree usually claimed," he stated, even though Australia just had its warmest winter on record. "Contrary to the breathless assertions that climate change is behind every weather event, in Australia, the floods are not bigger, the bushfires are not worse, the droughts are not deeper or longer, and the cyclones are not more severe than they were in the 1800s," he said. "Sometimes, they do more damage but that’s because there’s more to destroy, not because their intensity has increased."