Thirty years ago, on this day, November 25, 1993, the UK House of Commons library did a briefing on a particular climate policy possibility – carbon taxes.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was in 1989, at the beginning of the Greenhouse Effect wave of concern, the World Bank had said we need carbon taxes to reduce fossil fuel use and to use the money to subsidise the development of renewables. That had not been a goer in the UK. In 1993 there had been an attempt to justify an increase on VAT on energy bills as somehow a green measure written about this previously – it was a cynical attempt to poison the well, making it harder for proponents to get traction.
Meanwhile, the House of Commons library did what the House of Commons library does, it pulled together really useful data in a briefing that can be used by MPs, policy wonks, etc. God bless the House of Commons library basically.
What I think we can learn from this
You should always stop there first. You shouldn’t take what they say as gospel of course, – you shouldn’t take what anyone says is gospel. They will miss stuff, they will misinterpret stuff, because they’re human. But on the whole really, really useful stuff.
What happened next
In 1995, Crispin Tickell and others tried to get environmental measures into the budget, but by this time John Major was a busted flush, facing rebellion within his party. And the whole thing went nowhere for several years.
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.
