Thirty three years ago, on this day, March 3, 1990, a report on energy efficiency, commissioned by Australia’s Federal Government, was launched
AUSTRALIA could save money and drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gas if it became energy efficient, a report released yesterday revealed.
The report, A Greenhouse Energy Strategy, commissioned by the Federal Environment Department, found that by the year 2005, Australia could reduce its carbon dioxide output by almost 19 per cent on 1988 levels, resulting in annual savings of $6.5 billion.
Mealey, E. 1990. Energy cuts could save $6.5bn a year. Sun Herald, 4 March, p. 37
And
In the year 2005, greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by 18.8 per cent below the 1988 levels, and at the same time, Australia could save $6.5 billion a year, Federal Environment Minister Graham Richardson said on March 3. He was presenting the Greenhouse Energy Strategy report by Deni Green Consulting Services. “An annual saving on that scale has the potential to turn Australia’s economy around,” said Senator Richardson.
Anon, 1990. How energy efficiency could save money, cut greenhouse gases. Green Week, March 13 , p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia and other nations were holding various meetings, The Hague (March 1989) Nordwijk (November 1989), etc. around a climate treaty. The US and UK were both trying to slow it down. And in these various nations, environmentalists were trying to get strong policies about greenhouse gas emissions reductions. In Australia the environment department (DASETT) paid for a study by an expat American economist called Deni Green.
And on this day, a report was released, written by her, saying that energy efficiency measures would make achieving a putative 20% reduction in emissions by 2005 very, very doable.
Various states were already talking about the Toronto target adoption, the Federal Government was holding out. Treasurer Paul Keating had stopped the push for one for such an announcement in 1989.
And of course, all of this was happening in the context of a federal election to be held later the same month.
What I think we can learn from this
We need to remember that people have been talking about the value of energy efficiency as a greenhouse gas reduction measure for literally decades. And yet, not nearly as much progress has been made as they would have expected that the time or could have been. And it’s worth exploring why. One simple reason is that efficiency is not sexy, it doesn’t mean that the politician can stand there with a big hardhat and a high vis jacket. It also speaks to having to be limited. And modern humans hate that idea, hate having to live within limits. Or rather, the capitalists hate the idea that we would have to… see Hudson 2017 for more on this
What happened next
The Friends of Coal won all the big battles, and the idea of energy efficiency on steroids got sidelined again, of course.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..
See also – I wrote about this report last year!