On this day, October 3 in 2004, a journalist revealed that the Federal Government of Australia, led by John Howard, had had a meeting (invite-only) of top fossil fuel folks and asked for help in squishing renewable energy.
“The Federal Government and fossil-fuel industry executives discussed ways to stifle growing investment in renewable energy projects at a secret meeting earlier this year.
Prime Minister John Howard called the meeting on May 6, five weeks before releasing the energy white paper on June 14.
The white paper favours massive investment in research to make fossil fuels cleaner, at the expense of schemes boosting growth in renewable energy.
Mr Howard called together the fossil-fuel-based Lower Emissions Technology Advisory Group to seek advice on ways to avoid extending the mandatory renewable energy targets scheme.”
Miller, C. 2004. PM called talks to derail renewable energy. The Age, 3 October
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/02/1096527990014.html
You can read the minutes here
https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/WP56_8.pdf
Possibly the best example you could imagine of how state and corporate interests act together
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 374.63ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
All this talk about free markets. Yeah, right. State-managers gives favours (R&D, subsidies, tax-breaks etc) to those who can make party donations and arrange post-career sinecures NOW, not some potential future set of corporates.
What happened next?
Howard and the LNP continued to promote fossil fuels, at the expense of a) renewables and b) future generations.