Twenty years ago, on this day, March 31, 1998, there were two climate events on opposite sides of the world about just how business was going to save us all.
In the UK there was the launch of the Marshall Report
Climate change : a strategic issue for business : report presented to the Prime Minister, 31 March 1998 / Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment
In Australia there was “Greenhouse Beyond Kyoto: Issues, Opportunities and Challenges” Bureau of Resource Sciences, 31 March – 1st April 1998
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 367.ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
There are two events on either side of the planet worth mentioning in the same blog post.
The first is the release of a Blair government-era report. Treasurer Gordon Brown had commissioned Bob Marshall to talk to fellow business people about climate and climate policy. This process had been dominated, of course, by BP. Early proposals for carbon pricing had been minimised – more “death of a thousand cuts” until eventually you end up merely with a levy that is easily gamed and supplies ideological cover without driving any change.
On the other side of the planet, you have the beginning of a three day conference about Kyoto and beyond in Australia. And there’s a similar dynamic really, if we think about it. Business is hoping to shape and minimise what is happening and the government in Australia is more nakedly on their side than it In the UK, partly because Australia is a quarry with the state attached. And partly because Prime Minister John Howard is such a prick.
What I think we can learn from this
Business never sleeps, it is always in the words of Adam Smith, him what wrote the Wealth of Nations ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices‘.
What happened next
UK climate policy staggered on. Between 2003 and 2009 Climate and Energy Policy were kind of knitted together for various reasons and have stayed entangled. In Australia, they haven’t been entangled nearly as well, imho. There has been enormous tumult and heat, but not much light for various reasons.
And the emissions have kept climbing….
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.