Nineteen years ago, on this day, May 6, 2004, Australian Prime Minister John Howard convened a meeting of the Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group in order to … get them to help him kill off renewables. This is really quite extraordinary.
The Federal Government and fossil-fuel industry executives discussed ways to stifle growing investment in renewable energy projects at a secret meeting earlier this year.
Prime Minister John Howard called the meeting on May 6, five weeks before releasing the energy white paper on June 14.
The white paper favours massive investment in research to make fossil fuels cleaner, at the expense of schemes boosting growth in renewable energy.
Mr Howard called together the fossil-fuel-based Lower Emissions Technology Advisory Group to seek advice on ways to avoid extending the mandatory renewable energy targets scheme.
Anon, 2004. PM called talks to derail renewable energy The Age, October 3,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 380.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was a federal election coming. Opposition Leader Mark Latham was having some success, talking about renewables. The existing renewable scheme that had grudgingly started in 2002, was proving more successful than Howard wanted. Vestas had opened up a factory in Tasmania. And it was all looking as if Howard wasn’t going to be able to continue to easily rubbish renewables and therefore he tried to call in favours. We only know about this because it was leaked later that year.
What I think we can learn from this
The slowness of the arrival of renewables is not simply a question about whether the technology is not ready or “Oh, the business models aren’t ready.” There is also often explicit effective resistance from business and from government. It’s rare for them to be caught as red-handed as this. It didn’t seem to have much short term damage for Howard who won the 2004 Election.
What happened next
The Vestas factory in Tasmania shut down. Australian progress on renewables was slowed. John Howard deserves to rot in a fiery hell for what he did to Australia but personally, I don’t believe in hell so I’d just be happy to see him rot in a prison cell in The Hague on trial for crimes against humanity.
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.