Thirty one years ago, on this day, March 13, 1992, advocates of climate action made one last plea to the (Labor) government to take climate change seriously as both a threat and an opportunity.
A study [“Energy Futures: Efficient Energy Scenarios to 2020” ] by the Commission for the Future to examine the cost of reducing greenhouse gases found that Australia can break even if it enters the market for energy-efficiency equipment.
Announcing the findings last Friday [13th], commission director Archbishop Peter Hollingworth said, “The report highlights the urgent need for Australia to find a way through the difficult problem of maintaining economic growth and protecting the environment.
Anon, 1992. How Australia can break even on greenhouse. Greenweek, March 17, p.3.
The report is online, on Googlebooks.
Also, see here.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context
This one of the last desperate attempts by the pro climate action people in Australia to influence Australian Government thinking before the Rio Earth Summit.
The Commission for the Future had been set up when Barry Jones was still Science Minister. It had played a blinder in the late 1980s, relatively speaking, but by now was a shadow of its former self. It released a report that said energy efficiency would at least allow a breakeven on hitting the Toronto target. Paul Keating had become prime minister in December 1991, and had made sure that all of the previous (Hawke) administration’s environment policies were buried in 17 committees and left to rot. And this was among them.
If you were even more of a geek than me (not possible) you could do a comparison of the rhetoric and argument in the Feb 4 1990 document I wrote about here [LINK]
I suspect that it was commissioned before the end of 1991. Because otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted their breath.
What I think we can learn from this
Policy Windows close. Not necessarily because there’s been an election, just because there are new people at the top saying what is and what is not important.
What happened next
The Tasman Institute – rightwing “think” tank set up in 1990 to combat green groups – came out with a rapid rebuttal. Over the past year they had become quite good at doing rapid rebuttal reports. The Tasman Institute was wound up a victim of its own success by 1998.
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...