Thirty years ago, on this day, April 22, 1993, Clinton’s announcement was used in the low-intensity conflict over carbon pricing…
A PLEDGE by the US President, Mr Clinton, to cut emissions of greenhouse gases will raise the pressure on Australia to take tougher action, according to a senior Australian bureaucrat and Australian business and environment groups.
A first assistant secretary of the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Mr Peter Core, told business lobbyists yesterday at a private seminar organised by the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs, that Mr Clinton’s announcement would put renewed pressure on Australia’s stance on the issue.
And an assistant director of the Business Council of Australia, Ms Chris Burnup, said yesterday the move would dramatically change the complexion of talks on global climate change.
Garran, R. 1993. Clinton pledge cuts new key to the greenhouse. The Australian Financial Review, 23 April, p.9.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The business lobby and its proxies (including plenty in the Labor Party) had defeated the first attempt at a carbon tax during 1990-1991. They knew it would be back soon-ish though. This briefing to an AFR hack may have been an effort to smoke out proponents, force them to show their colours so they could be crushed. Alternatively, it might have been from a proponent, hoping to slowly raise the pressure, build a new normal…see the post from a few days ago about Keating…
What I think we can learn from this
You have to read newspaper articles thinking “which lying liar fed this to the hack, and what is the hack trying to push?” It’s exhausting to do this, and most of us most of the time just pretend that if it is in the paper (of our choice) it is ‘true.’ That’s nonsense, but there are rarely any personal consequences, so as an energy-saving habit, it persists.
What happened next
There was indeed another push for a carbon tax. It was defeated. Australia didn’t get carbon pricing until 2012, and then only for a couple of years. To be clear – carbon pricing is one very small part of what you would do if you were trying to respond to the threats of climate change. But it’s a brown M&M when it comes to how serious your government is..
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