Twenty years ago, on this day, August 21st, 2004, a newspaper tells the tale… (I know this because the ALP’s Anthony Albanese was using the article to attack Prime Minister John Howard in March 2005.)
Albanese speech in parliament 9 March 2005
“Even Treasurer Peter Costello and the former environment minister, David Kemp, supported a national trading scheme. As reported by the Australian on 21 August 2004:
Federal cabinet rejected such a scheme— an emissions trading scheme in 2003— … even though Environment Minister David Kemp and Treasurer Peter Costello promoted it, after industry lobbied John Howard
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australian Prime Minister John Howard had polished off the emissions trading scheme for the second time, even though his Cabinet had been united against him. He’d hit a pause button, gone and talked to his business mates, came back and said “nah.”
And here we were a year later. I think in the run up to the 2004. Federal election (which happened in October. Mark Latham. Remember him?). A good old fashioned scoop that the Australian ran, presumably because they knew that if they didn’t, it would get given to someone else. It also made them look like journalists, which is always difficult when you’re The Australian. [Interesting question would be who leaked it and why? I don’t know that they ever necessarily got to the bottom of that. But it would be fun to find out.]
What we learn is that when somebody would leak something, you’d have to ask, what were they trying to achieve? What’s the timing? And have they protected themselves enough? Sarah Tisdall and all that.
What happened next, Howard won the 2004 election. Latham went way off the deep end. And Howard got another three years of being a complete fuck knuckle on climate.
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 21, 1961 – The UN holds a “new sources of energy” conference.
August 21, 1972 – Nature editor John Maddox says C02-temperature fear “found wanting”