Twenty years ago, on this day, September 18th, 2004, the Melbourne Age had the following report on page 3
The Victorian Government and other states are close to finalising a plan for a groundbreaking greenhouse gas emissions trading system to curb pollution caused by industry.
Flagging a major Government focus on the environment, renewable energy and sustainability over the next five years, Premier Steve Bracks said Victoria would take a leadership role in pushing the model.
While the plan is yet to be finalised, it is likely that it would cap companies’ greenhouse gases. If companies exceeded their cap, they would have to buy credits from other companies….
Gray, D. 2004. States Push Emissions Trading Plan. The Age, 18 September, p. 3
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that after the defeat of a straightforward Carbon Tax in 1995, attention had turned to various emissions trading schemes, which had the added benefit of helping banks get rich. And economists could argue about which particular iteration was the most “efficient”, all the while ignoring the fact that these systems will be gamed. There’ll be loopholes, there will be grandfathering clauses, etc. Anyway, there have been two efforts to get the federal Emissions Trading Scheme and Prime Minister John Howard had successfully defeated two proposals for an emissions trading scheme. In 2000, Nick Minchin had been his point man, and then 2003 he had done it literally all by himself. So it was fairly obvious that if you wanted an emissions trading scheme, you’re gonna have to do it so-called “bottom up” with each state, coming up with its own, but then there being transferability and interoperability. And one of the champions for this was Bob Carr, who was still the New South Wales premier (had been since 1995). And here, they were saying that they were going to make it happen. [I don’t know why they didn’t. Did the Federales step in and tell them to go up themselves? That would be a good question to try and answer.]
What we learn is that good ideas and semi-good ideas and wretched ideas are hard to kill off. Especially if they go with the grain of neoliberalism and are going to make some people very rich.
What happened next. The states’ scheme came to nothing. Kevin Rudd, as Labor Opposition Leader, started talking up an ETS, forcing Howard to do the same. Then the horrors of 2008 to 2012…
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:
September 18, 2013 – Greenpeace try to occupy the “Arctic Sunrise.”
September 18, 2013 – Feeble denialists launch feeble denialist “report”