Twenty one years ago, on this day, June 5, 2002, climate thug (among other kinds of thug) John Howard told parliament he would not be submitting the Kyoto Protocol for ratification
‘It is not in Australia’s interests to ratify. The protocol would cost us jobs and damage our industry.’
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Howard had long been hostile to environmental and especially global warming issues. Since taking office, he had expended a lot of diplomatic energy and capital in 1997 to carve out an absurdly generous deal for Australia. It had already been leaked in September 1988, that the Cabinet had agreed not to ratify Kyoto, unless the United States did. So Howard’s announcement came as no surprise to anyone. But it was a colourful insouciant arrogant kick in the teeth to do it on World Environment Day, the kind of thing that makes Howard the turd that he is.
What I think we can learn from this is that these sorts of announcements are timed, in part, to throw red meat to supporters, but also to demoralise those who are pushing for stronger action. Because if you can demoralise them if they don’t turn up to the next battle, it’s easier for you to win. And hopefully you can set up a virtuous circle where they are forced from the field. That’s the theory. And often it works – but on climate, there’s always new people waking up and getting frantically concerned because well, the issue is frantically concerning (although most of them burn out quick, and retreat to lick their wounds, because there aren’t the groups that can help them sustain themselves).
What happened next
Howard continued to cause mayhem and irreparable damage.
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..
References
Veil of Kyoto rather good on “gesture politics”