On this day, August 7 1995 journalist Gavin Gilchrist reports – front page of the Sydney Morning Herald – on the dodgy AF “MEGABARE” model
“The Keating Government is secretly developing a major diplomatic offensive that will undermine efforts to protect the world’s climate.
Confidential documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade show that the strategy relies heavily on a major government study that ignores the environmental benefits of tough action on global warming and instead highlights short-term economic costs.
It is a strategy that threatens to scuttle coming international negotiations on global emissions of harmful greenhouse gases.
The study, MEGABARE, was produced by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) in Canberra and has been funded heavily by the coal industry, which is fighting controls on greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas, is produced by burning coal, oil or gas.
The Australian Coal Association has confirmed that it contributed $100,000 to MEGABARE. The Business Council of Australia and the coal producers BHP and CRA also contributed.
Gilchrist, G. 1995. Secret Strategy Undermines Greenhouse fight. Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August. P.1
This was months after a carbon tax proposal had been defeated. Ho hum.
On this day the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 359.33 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
The economic models were a joke, but that was not an accident. That was a feature, not a bug. Politicians could stand up and say any move from fossil fuels towards renewables would lead to imminent and unutterable chaos, cannibalism and despair.
What happened next?
MEGABARE was eventually killed off, but the use of joke economic models has continued. Too useful not to continue to be used.