On this day, July 4, in 2004 WWF Australia brought together various outfits as “the Australian Climate Group.”
They said –
“An unprecedented alliance of commercial and scientific experts has formed the Australian Climate Group (ACG) which today launched its first report, Climate Change: Solutions for Australia. The Report is designed to guide public opinion and government policy towards a solution to the issues of climate change”
You can read it via here.
The context? John Howard was wrecking the joint, blocking even the most minor climate action. People and organisations kept trying to organise…
Why this matters.
This is what (some) NGOs do – they try to build coalitions/alliances of actors to chip away at the legitimacy, the hegemony of those they don’t like. Sometimes it works, often it doesn’t.
What happened next?
It didn’t do much. This was the period of peak-Howard. Two years later, a Westpac-led effort (iirc put together by Australian Conservation Foundation) had a bit more traction.