Nineteen years ago, on this day, February 10th, 2006,
COAG meeting a chance for real progress on climate change
Date: 9-Feb-2006
The Australian Conservation Foundation has urged Commonwealth, State and Territory leaders to use tomorrow’s Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Canberra to craft a consistent, national approach to climate change.
“A global problem requires a global solution,” said ACF Executive Director Don Henry. “It’s vital we get Commonwealth, State and Territory leaders pulling in the same direction on this.”
“It’s good to see COAG talking about climate change. They can make some real progress on measures that will make a difference.”
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/13467/20120118-0823/www.acfonline.org.au/articles/newse312.html?news_id=712
[COAG Working group had been set up previous late may/early June, according to this – “ACF calls for national deep cuts target on greenhouse”-11-Jun-2005]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that climate change still had not quite broken through in public awareness, not for want of trying by Australian Conservation Foundation and others, and what we see is ACS trying to work with the state governments, most of which at this point were labor and one. To use climate as a stick to beat John Howard with. And ACF, if it has an affinity, it is with Labor. They’re probably less so now,
What I think we can learn from this is that policy entrepreneurs have to try and try and try and they will not get what they want.
What happened next
by the end of the year the ACF, sorry, the climate issue was on the agenda thanks to Millennium drought, Al Gore, Lord Stern, and this was exemplified by the huge walk against warming that year, September of thereabouts.
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.