Twenty seven years ago, on this day, August 17th, 1997,
The Australian energy, mining and paper industries have united to call on the Government to appoint a Cabinet-ranked sustainable development minister to combat “piecemeal management” and to take a national approach to greenhouse gas abatement.
Yesterday, industry peak bodies issued a joint statement saying the lack of coherent management was “one of the greatest threats to a robust, coherent and consistent industry policy and certainly to resources and energy policy”.
1997 Taylor, L. (1997) Industry wants minister for `greenhouse’ The Australian Financial Review 18th August
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that it was clear some sort of “Greenhouse Office” or greenhouse minister was going to be required, if only to keep the Libs quiet. And so this call from industries like Paper happening as it was, at the same time as the Countdown to Kyoto conference is a classic spoiler move, demand a ministerial post is created: that helps give small L-libs that something is being done (see also Macmillan Manoeuvre). And then you make damn sure that your guy is in charge. And if your guy isn’t in charge, you have fallback plans about withholding information, not inviting them to meetings, all the rest of it. And this is one of those good tactics that the dickheads have at their disposal.
What we learn is that in isolation, a bold statement of fact can seem confusing, but once you put the pieces together of the puzzle, you see what else was happening. You see what else their motivations might have been. Then it becomes a little bit clearer.
What happened next, there was no greenhouse minister that there was the Australian Greenhouse Office with pitiful funding that Howard appointed and then ignored. It was a total waste of money as the Australian National Audit Office pointed out in 2004.
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:
August 17, 1982 – Crispin Tickell sounds the alarm bell
August 17, 1989 – Space shields to save the earth…
August 17, 1998 – Emissions Trading considered (again)
August 17, 2002 – Pacific states urge Australia to sign Kyoto Protocol