Twenty-five years ago, on this day, May 22nd, 2000,
Industry started a strong campaign against the Environment Minister, Senator Robert Hill’s, proposed greenhouse trigger yesterday. This follows a fiery Cabinet discussion on Tuesday [23rd] over new greenhouse measures proposed by the Senator.
The Federal Cabinet is understood to have reached a clear understanding on Tuesday that no extra greenhouse requirements should be imposed on the proposed $1billion Kogan Creek power station in Queensland.
It rejected a memo from Senator Hill that the project be forced to invest in greenhouse-abatement projects to offset its own emissions. However, a spokesman for the Environment Minister said the Cabinet had not made a final decision.
2000 Taylor, L. 2000. Industry adds its weight to oppose greenhouse move. Australian Financial Review, 25 May 25, p.7.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in the lead up to the Kyoto COP in late 1997 Prime Minister John Howard had been forced to make some public promises about climate action. He’d then done everything he could to drag his heels/slow things down. But the pressure was still there, and there was another election coming.
What I think we can learn from this is that Australian politicians have been trying to do as little as they can get away with for a very long time.
What happened next. The greenhouse trigger was defeated – god forbid that Ministers would have to take a credibility hit to wave through dodgy projects every time a dodgy project came along… Soon, they’d have no credibility left…
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:
May 22, 1972 – Horizon doco “Do you Dig National Parks?” – All Our Yesterdays
May 22, 2007 – “Clean coal” power station by 2014, honest…
May 22 – Build Back Biodiversity: International Biodiversity Day