On this day, 14 August 1989,
“The South Australian Government established an interdepartmental committee on climate change… to prepare a strategy addressing the greenhouse issue. The Committee’s first report, `Implications of Climate Change for South Australia’, was released in August 1990 and described the possible impacts of climate change.”
Page P.29 of Industry Commission report http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/greenhouse/15greenhouse2.pdf
Why this matters.
It doesn’t. But I am from South Australia. So, call it a self-indulgence. These sorts of committees and “strategies” were dime a dozen in 1989.
What happened next?
There followed a hell of a lot of talking, not really much doing. But through the 2000s and into the 2010s South Australia – under the canny stewardship of Labor premiers Mike Rann and then Jay Weatherill, managed to leverage the various renewable energy targets that Howard hadn’t managed to kill off.
South Australia managed to make use of its land and wind and start to properly decarbonise its energy sector. Housing and transport and food? Well, not quite so much. But we shall see…
btw, on this day the PPM was 351.84 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.