Twenty eight years ago, on this day, January 6, 1995, as part of a broad attack on a proposed carbon tax, business whined “yeah, but no other country is doing anything.”
”THE business push for a cautious approach by the Federal Government on greenhouse gas controls has been given a boost by a new study which shows only a handful of countries will meet their emission reduction targets.
The study, prepared by industry groups, shows only five of the 36 countries which are key members of the International Panel on Climate Change appear likely to meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2000.”
Dwyer, M. & Wilson, N. (1995). Study argues against $320m carbon tax. The Australian Financial Review, 6 January, p.5. (See also the editorial – Anon. 1995. The trouble with a carbon tax. Australian Financial Review, 6 January, p.12)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 360ppm. As of 2023 it is 419
.
The context was that Australian business interests had already defeated a carbon tax proposal in the lead up to the Rio Earth Summit, and were mobilising an even broader coalition of actors and ‘arguments’ (including our old friend ‘the sky will fall’ economic modelling) in this effort.
What I think we can learn from this
The fact that doing anything about climate change is a really hard collective actor problem is used to make climate change a really hard collective actor problem, and to ‘justify’ (excuse) doing nothing, and engaging in predatory delay.
What happened next
The business lobby effort was successful (for multiple reasons). The carbon tax was abandoned. Attention switched to emissions trading schemes. No actual carbon price came into play until 2012. And was then swiftly killed off by the next Australian government. The emissions and the atmospheric concentrations? They climbed. Of course they did.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Dwyer, M. & Wilson, N. (1995). Study argues against $320m carbon tax. The Australian Financial Review, 6 January, p.5