Thirty four years ago, on this day, August 30 1989 the Australian newspaper the Canberra Times reported on the crazy ideas that … might have made a difference. What a stupid stupid species we turned out to be.
“A third set of more imaginative options are ruled out as too costly. These include a global tax on carbon emissions, major investment in renewable energy, and the banning of coal.”
Guest, I. 1989. World Bank tackles global warming. Canberra Times, 30 August, p. 9.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that debates about the responses to climate change – what we used to call the greenhouse effect – were well underway, because various nations were adopting or thinking about adopting emissions reductions targets such as the Toronto Target. What’s entertaining in this is the question “compared to what?” So, if there had been a global carbon emissions tax and the money raised had gone into investing in renewable energy and compensating the workers affected by the demise of coal, then we might have gotten somewhere… But it would all have been too costly to save the world.
What I think we can learn from this is that the ideas we needed were there but turning ideas into a political program requires more skill and resources than we had. This is largely (but not totally) because of the veto power of business and the obduracy of large technical systems and so on.
What happened next
We never got a carbon tax. We got attempts at emissions trading schemes. The so-called major investments in renewables came very late, too late. And although we may exit coal, we will do it far too late.
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.