Twenty eight years ago, on this day, July 12th, 1996, COP2
GENEVA, July 12 (Reuter) – Top specialists on the effects of global warming on human health on Friday accused energy corporations of working to undermine international efforts to halt climate change.
The attack came amid growing controversy at a two-week United Nations conference on how far to limit “greenhouse gas” emissions, mainly from burning of oil and coal, blamed by key scientists for rising world temperatures.
“The fossil fuel lobby is beginning to behave like the tobacco industry did 30 years ago, as adverse health effects of smoking first emerged,” Anthony McMichael of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said.
“It is using a typical rearguard action, through attempts at distortion, delaying tactics and making enough noise to drown out the arguments for strong moves by the world’s political leaders to cut emissions,” he told a news conference.
1996 – Evans, R. 1996 Doctors hit energy groups over global warming. Reuters News 12th July
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 363ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that COP1 had finished with the so-called Berlin Mandate, which meant rich nations were going to have to come to Kyoto with an agreement to reduce their emissions. The new federal government in Australia was distinctly unimpressed. And so was industry, which had seen off a domestic carbon tax and had it replaced with a meaningless Greenhouse Challenge probably saw no reason why that same victory couldn’t be repeated on the international stage. Yes, you’d have to ignore brown people living in low lying countries and islands. But that was hardly difficult.
What we learn is that fossil fuel interests had had successes domestically, and had every confidence that they could repeat that internationally. And it turns out, sadly, for our species, and all the other species on this beautiful planet, that their confidence was well-founded. They managed to gut the ambition and the Kyoto Protocol. And they’ve managed to keep winning. Now, they were joined in this by inertia, complacency, neoliberalism, whatever set of explanations, nouns you want to use. But they were a key factor in making sure nothing significant got done. And they were very, very good at doing that.
What happened next? Australia carved out an incredibly generous deal at Kyoto in 1997. And then, still refused to ratify. When they finally did in 2007 it was a meaningless gesture. The sort of thing that Kevin Rudd excelled at. Actually doing policy and implementation, he found somewhat more challenging.
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 12, 1953 – “The Weather is Really Changing” says New York Times
July 12, 1978 – US Climate Research Board meeting
July 12, 2007 – #Australia gets swindled on #climate change…