On 13 May 2006, with the climate issue becoming harder to ignore, Prime Minister John Howard – after meeting President George Bush and Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and wittering on about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership – started flying kites about the need for Australia to go nuclear. This escalated over the following days – see here about comments he made in Canada.
The context was this – Howard had spent the previous ten years, as Prime Minister, blocking renewables, favouring coal and fossil fuel exports, and trying (with great success) to slow international action on climate change. But the endless Millennium Drought, and international developments (Kyoto ratification, the EUETS) were beginning to make him nervous. So, along comes nuclear to wedge the opposition and make him look like he was doing enough…
Why this matters
We need to remember that when in a tight spot, elite politicians will always reach for a gleaming technofix.
What happened next
There was a report. It said nuclear would be too expensive. Kevin Rudd became opposition leader, started banging on about climate change as “the great moral challenge”, to be solved with… checks notes… an Emissions Trading Scheme and Carbon Capture and Storage…
. cartoon by Nicholson in Australian (as per National insecurity Australia book, available on scribd)