Thirty years ago, on this day, December 5th, 1994, Keating’s government was supposed to discuss a carbon tax (but it got bumped).
“Conservation groups yesterday stepped up pressure on the Federal Government to adopt tougher measures to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Federal Cabinet will consider the issue tomorrow.
In Yallourn, Greenpeace activists chained themselves across railway tracks used by coal trains which feed the Yallourn W power station.
They also unfurled a huge banner down the side of one of the station’s smoke stacks.
Birnbauer, B. 1994. Greenies Mount Campaign For Greenhouse Tax. The Age, 6 December, p.3.
AND
LOCAL coal prices would double and the $8 billion export coal industry would be rendered unprofitable if Federal Cabinet introduced a new carbon levy to help reduce greenhouse gas, according to a major study released yesterday.“… But the Australian Conservation Foundation also released a new report yesterday (5 December), prepared for the ACF as a submission to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
“On both a per capita basis and in terms of emissions per unit of GDP, Australia now has by far the highest level of all greenhouse gas emissions in the industrialised world,” said ACF executive director, Ms Tricia Caswell”.
1994 Dwyer, M. 1994. Coal fire on carbon levy. The Australian Financial Review, 6 December, p.8.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Greenpeace had been launching court cases to try to stop coal-fired power stations. They’ve not been successful, sadly, no fault of their own. And also there was a carbon tax proposed by Labor Environment Minister John Faulkner (with the campaign to get this happening spear-headed by ACF). So this protest can be seen as two birds one stone sort of.
[It’d be fun to get hold of Greenpeace newsletters magazines from 1994 to ‘95. See what they had to say.]
What we learn is that nonviolent direct action against coal-fired power stations has been going on for a long time. Sadly without much success.
What happened next? Australia kept building coal-fired power stations. The carbon tax was defeated and the emissions kept climbing. We are all going to die.
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:
December 5, 1952 & 2009 London sees climatic pollution events
December 5, 2002 – Australian Government CCS support begins…