Fifteen years ago, on this day, December 16, 2008, the “news” paper the Australian goes to town on Kevin Rudd’s (admittedly wretched) white paper about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Kevin Rudd had become Australian Prime Minister in November 2007. A large part of his “offer” was to do something about climate change. He had sidelined independent expert Ross Garnaut for being too independent, and set up a green paper and white paper process. There had been enormous lobbying and in the words of Garnaut “never had so much been given by so many to so few”
The Australian had been largely sceptical, talking up both scientific doubts and economic consequences. And of course this is in the context of global financial crisis which had started in September 2008.
The white paper had been released to mostly disappointment (and a physical protest at the National Press Club) a week earlier and this Australian page 3 page spread is part of the response.
What I think we can learn from this is that some people thought Rudd was going far too far others thought that there was no ambition. The latter were correct.
What happened next
Rudd bottled it. In 2009 Rudd tried twice to get legislation through with virtually no skill. The contrast with Julia Gillard with the minority government in 2011 is remarkable.
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..