Twenty eight years ago, on this day, July 10th, 1996, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story about the NGAP report, saying it had ignored the tricky issue of climate change.
The day before, the Australian had had this –
FUEL and power subsidies, poor planning and political inaction have slowed Australia’s drive to cut its greenhouse emissions, a government advisory panel has warned.
The National Greenhouse Advisory Panel, representing industry, conservation, science and community sectors, has advised the Federal and State governments to consider imposing firm targets for greenhouse reductions in the manufacturing, agriculture, transport and household sectors.
It has urged governments to start planning for the effects of higher temperatures and rising sea levels caused by global warming next century.
NGAP’s chairman, Professor Paul Greenfield of the University of Queensland, yesterday said the panel’s two-year review of Australia’s official greenhouse policy had identified “shortfalls”. “There needs to be a bit of revitalisation in the response,” he told The Australian, on the eve of United Nations negotiations in Geneva for a new climate change treaty.
“I think it has slowed down a bit. It’s not that it’s all been totally a disaster, but it’s fair to say not a lot has happened.”
Statistics due to be released today show that Australia’s greenhouse emissions rose 3 per cent last year – in breach of an international target to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide to 1990 levels by 2000.
Bita, N. 1996. Subsidies slow greenhouse drive. The Australian, 9 July, p.2.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 362ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the NGAP was set up in June 1994, when Labor Environment Minister John Faulkner was trying to show he ‘got it’ and gave a damn. The Howard Government had come in, in March, and had taken a chainsaw with it to COP-2 in Switzerland and the National Greenhouse Advisory Panel, which, to be fair, was merely advisory, not statutory and so could be (and was) easily ignored.
What we learn is that there’s a real risk to you if you get involved in these advisory panels that you’ll be used as a fig leaf and then presented with a choice of “shut up and be still be in the room with the big powerful people, but lose all credibility beyond” or “walk and be accused of spitting the dummy and not understanding how politics is done,” when in actual fact you understand all too well; you have the brains but not the stomach for the lies and evasions and bullshit.
What happened next? The National Greenhouse Advisory Panel was killed off a few years later and was not mourned or missed.
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.
Also on this day:
July 10, 1985 – French state commits terrorist act
July 10, 2008 – first Australian #Climate Camp begins, near Newcastle