Below is an email interview with Bill Hare, CEO & Senior Scientist at Climate Analytics
You can follow Bill on Twitter – @BillHareClimate
1. When did you first hear about climate change, and how? What was the Australian Conservation Foundation’s early position on it?
I heard about rising CO2 concentrations and climate change in high school from a geography teacher in the early 1970s.
What woke me up to it as a significant problem was an academic at University of Western Australia gave me a paper in nature in 1978 to look at. At first, I was sceptical, but the more I looked into it the more I became convinced it – fossil fuel CO2 induced climate warming – was a serious problem.
When I first joined the Australian Conservation Foundation climate change was not a theme. Stratospheric ozone depletion was an emerging problem, and I was pretty heavily briefed by CSIRO scientist at the time, notably Barrie Pittock. He also brought to my attention, a number of international publications on rising concern about global warming.
By the late 1980s, there were calls for a 20% reduction in C02 emissions by 2005 (the Toronto target). If I recall correctly the ACF lined up behind those calls in various submissions and press commentary.
At the same time, we were also calling for a phase out of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting substances to combat stratospheric ozone depletion.
2. Australian policy elites first started to have their attention properly drawn to the issue almost 30 years ago, in 1986, with the public following in 1988.
Yes, there was the 1987 CSIRO conference, and that I think marks the beginning of formal attention to this issue
I had a paper at this conference with my colleague at the time Helen Quilligan
Since then, there have been fierce battles over even the most elementary of policy instruments (carbon pricing and support for renewables).
Yes, and at the level of macroeconomic policy, the view by the late 1980s in Australia was that the country had a lot to benefit from exporting coal and other resources to North East Asia, including China.
This became quite a dominant view and provided a justification of much of what happened in the 1990s and beyond.
Hawke in responding to this report, recognised the environmental challenges that would come from a massive expansion of and made the claim that
“And let me make this point. My Government does not accept the simplistic dichotomy – development or the protection of the environment. We must have both. And our record shows that we can have both.”
The ecologically sustainable development process that he set up however, failed to substantially impact the direction and scale of environmental protection in Australia. Paul Keating had a little interest in this when he assumed the role of prime minister and there’s process became completely moribund, under pressure from the resource development lobby and relevant agencies of government.
Climate policy was essentially non-existent, and opposition to action inside government federally was widespread and intensive.
One fairly standard academic view is that this is what you’d expect of a country with enormous fossil fuel reserves and a powerful mining industry.
That is very fatalistic view. Is that what had to be? I’m not so sure – ecological modernisation, under the umbrella of the Ecologic development process was aimed at industrial power. I don’t think it had to end up the way it did.
Looking back at this period, I don’t think the extent of capture of the political parties by the fossil fuel industry was anywhere near as advanced as it is now.
Is that too fatalistic? Does that let the politicians, other business and civil society off the hook?
I think it lets politicians off the hook and does not properly contextualise the rapacious behaviour of Australia is mining, resources industry and fossil fuel industry. I think the Murdoch press played a very significant and destructive roll in all this over the last 20 or 30 years.
It’s hard to comment on the role of civil society.
(And if this academic view is not a good explanation, what is a better one?)
I don’t know how ground breaking it is to describe the blinding obvious in retrospect.
It might have helped if a lot more academics has spoken up about the adverse direction of Australia on climate action over the years.
3. Without getting bogged down, what could and should have been done differently,
Well, it depends on ones view of history. Is it historically determined that in 2013 Australia elected a government that would repeal groundbreaking climate legislation and policies and start a decade of denial?
If this legislation has not been repealed, then I think we would be in a substantially different place. Then we are now, probably one somewhat behind the European Union, but with a range of different policy instruments in place that could be improved.
and – crucially – what could and should ‘campaigners’ (broadly defined so as to include renewables companies etc) do differently in the short-to-medium term to try to accelerate policy and technology change towards something that might be considered adequate.
Well, there are a number of things that need to be focused on, and these include working to establish the right long-term policy frameworks, fearlessly hold government to account on their policies and actions, continue the campaign to convince people of the wisdom and benefits of climate policy action, make sure people understand the risks coming from global warming and to upgrade communication efforts in this area.
It is very important that NGOs and academics are fully independent of government and special or pecuniary interests, particularly in the Australian context interest in offsets. Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a pattern of interest that may conflict.
It is also very important that NGOs are brave and fearless, and do not concern themselves overly with the health of the Labour Party internally, nor prioritise, access to ministers over, maintaining a strong and consistent position on the right things to do. In the end, and my experience, mature government will listen even if I don’t like the message they are at first.
4. Personal question – where do you get your hope/tenacity from? (If it’s a special Amazon delivery, what’s the URL for that!!)
One has to have hope, and as soon as one becomes cynical it’s time to leave the field. Surprising as it might seem, I get a lot of energy from the science of this issue. Yes, the news is very depressing, but if one focuses on what can be done and how fast then one can see a way forward. In addition, the massive role out of renewables, electric vehicles and batteries has to give rise to hope that we can bend the curve fast enough. At the end of the day, the problem is too serious to give up and to serious to surrender hope
