Nineteen years ago, on this day, January 12th, 2006,
“NUCLEAR power will be examined as part of the solution to global warming when ministers from six countries meet this morning in Sydney for talks on climate change…”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone knows there’s going to have to be a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, even though (because) t was far too weak. And so the proponents of action are talking about a stronger emissions trading scheme with fewer loopholes. And the opponents are, of course, talking about “technology.” The Bush and Howard governments had been banging on and creating these entirely fake and stupid bodies that would allow world leaders to stand at a podium in front of a new logo and declare “hydrogen” or “nuclear” or “CCS” or some other nonsense instead of any actual emissions cuts, And this is further examples of that.
What I think we can learn from this
Technology is always invoked as the get out of jail free card. Enough people find it convenient to believe, or easy enough to pretend to believe. And the emissions keep climbing.
What happened next
And the emissions kept climbing.
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: