Month: September 2023

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

September 4, 2000 – industry says sky will fall if there’s a carbon tax

Thirty three years ago, on this day, September 4, 2000, industry did another of its ‘the sky will fall’ efforts.

Victorian economic growth could be slashed by more than 2 per cent, thousands could lose their jobs and the aluminum industry could close if a strict anti-greenhouse gas regime is introduced, according to a landmark study.

The study by the Allen Consulting Group has estimated that Victoria’s gross state product would be between 1.3 per cent and 2.6 per cent smaller in 2012 if an emissions trading system or carbon tax scheme were introduced to combat Australia’s growing rate of unwanted greenhouse gas emissions.

Hopkins, P. 2000. Study Warns Of Greenhouse Gas Mayhem. The Age, 4 September, p1.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Victorian government was proposing things that industry did not like. So that was enough for yet another “oh my god the sky will fall if you so much as tax a single molecule of hydrocarbons, we will all starve to death.” These economic models get put in reports and get turned into press releases and speeches which are dutifully reported by stenographers to power.

What I think we can learn from this is that these nonsense economic modeling reports are a favorite weapon in the war against sanity and the public good.

What happened next 

I am a bad historian, I haven’t bothered to go and look at what happened next. Did the government find the backbone to stare down this report? Sometimes they can. It depends on all manner of things not just the particular courage of the particular minister.

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.

Categories
Australia

September 4, 1990 – Industry whines about environment minister’s speech

Thirty years ago, on this day, September 4, 1990, Industry went all snowflake because a minister was a Mean Girl.

Anon, 1990. Industry upset about Minister’s Attack on Miners, Foresters. Green Week, September 4, p.8.

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 Hawke government was having to keep promises it had made to environmental groups in order to win the 1990 federal election. One promise was to set up an ecologically sustainable development process. The very existence of this offended industry, which was used to getting its own way via the usual means and did not feel it should ever have to justify its policies and proposals to anyone, least of all a bunch of smelly hippies. Relations with the then environment minister Ros Kelly were complicated, especially after she had made robust statements about what the miners meant with their definition of sustainability.

What I think we can learn from this is that industry was used to getting its own way and as per that old line “when privilege is removed it feels like oppression” industry always feels oppressed.

What happened next is that the ecologically sustainable development process continued but was then thrown in the circular file when new prime minister Paul Keating shat all over it and the federal bureaucracy buried it as this blog post about the events of August 6, 1992.

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..

Categories
Australia Kyoto Protocol

September 3, 2002 – “Kyoto cuts too small, so we’re not going to bother”. 

Twenty one years ago, on this day, September 3, 2002, Australian Environment Minister David Kemp was on ABC-TV, explaining the Howard government’s position.

Silly Excuse No. 8. Cuts required by the Kyoto Protocol are too small to make a difference, so why bother?

“Kyoto is going to make barely 1 percent difference to global greenhouse gas emissions.” (Environment Minister Kemp, ‘Lateline’, ABC TV, 3 September 2002) Former Environment Minister David Kemp endorsed the IPCC’s estimate that global emissions will need to be cut by 60% or more to stabilize climate change and says the Government would not ratify the Protocol because it will result only in very small reductions.

[Clive Hamilton, 1 sept 2004]

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 the Howard government had negotiated a spectacularly generous deal for Australia at the 1997 Kyoto conference. It had then ruled out ratifying the key Kyoto protocol in June 2002. (It would also rule out emissions trading at a federal level but state governments especially New South Wales and Victoria controlled by Labor were pushing for an emissions trading scheme). 

What I think we can learn from this is that there are no depths of intellectual vacuity and moral skank that old white men will not stoop to if they’re in a corner.

What happened next

Howard continued to resist any action on climate change and then at the end of 2006 tried to do the perception of a u-turn but failed. Throughout all of this emissions have climbed and the consequences have come. more consequences are coming.

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.

Categories
International processes UNFCCC United Nations

September 2, 1994 – International Negotiating Committee 10th meeting ends

Twenty nine years ago, on this day, September 2, 1994, was the 10th meeting of the outfit that had planned the climate bit of the 1992 Earth Summit and had kept on going afterwards, in the run up to the first “conference of the parties” (to be held in Berlin, in March-April 1995).

Slooooow progress between Rio and Berlin….

Despite the introduction of a formal text into the proceedings which proposed C02 reductions, the session remained deadlocked on the introduction of a protocol such as that proposed by the Germans (Eco, 2 September, 1994: 1). Despite the fact that it was Germany which had proposed it, the EU rapidly said it was not prepared to consider a protocol for COP1, and many developing countries were also opposed, believing it might be a pretext for commitments to be imposed on them, or in some cases even that OECD action itself would hurt their interests. Oil-producing countries often presented their own interests in this way, suggesting OECD action would harm developing countries as a whole e.g. see Al-Sabban, 1991).

Paterson 1996 page 68

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 358ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that by this time everyone knew that COP1 was coming (to be held in Berlin) and therefore there would be more and more pressure for something serious to be agreed. But here we were still in the shadow-boxing phase, even though it was obvious that the initial stabilisation targets were not going to be met, and that the science was getting stronger. The IPCC people were working towards their second assessment and the denialists were in their pomp, having defeated Clinton’s BTU.

What I think we can learn from this is that we have been grinding away for over 30 years. And given, the absence of strong social movements (among other significant factors)  in the countries that matter – for energy justice, climate justice, intergenerational justice – then you’re going to get these sort of technocratic “lost in the detail” shitshows. And so it has come to pass.

What happened next

At cop1 finally there was the Berlin Mandate forcing rich nations to agree that by the end of 1997 they would agree to cuts. That meeting ended up happening in Kyoto, Japan.

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..