Twenty three years ago, on this day, August 8, 1990, Aussie and New Zealand politicians called for ambitious emissions reductions.
“One was launched by the Australian and New Zealand Environment Council on August 8, and supports the Toronto target as an interim goal for planning purposes. This has been accepted by the Governments of NSW, Victoria and the ACT.” (Begbe, 1990, 10 Sept)
Btw, on the same day, in the same country, the ABC’s Lateline had an episode devoted to:
“The problem of greenhouse gas emissions and Australia’s record on research funding for alternative energy sources.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the federal government was under pressure to announce an emissions reduction target, to both keep the environmentalists happy, and for Australia to have a position at the impending Second World Climate Conference to be held in November in Geneva. And therefore, state environment ministers and New Zealand ministers saying that there should be a “Toronto target” was a good idea.
What I think we can learn from this is that any government is going to be pressured by other governments. And it’s counter pressure from the likes of Brian O’Brien and denialists.
What happened next
On October 11th 1990 the Federal Government agreed to a very hedged climate action target – with the caveat that it mustn’t hurt the economy. It then got ignored, having served its purpose of shutting up the greenies. The easter egg was that the Industry Commission got to produce a report that would be used as a bludgeon to say “too costly”…
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.