Twenty-five years ago, on this day, August 28th, 2000, private interests reject the public good – colour me amazed.
MELBOURNE, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Victorian power generators said on Monday they would not sign a government agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions because it contained draconian penalties.
Loy Yang Power spokesman Richard Elkington said generators had agreed to voluntarily achieve best-practice efficiency standards that would cut emissions, but the proposed Australian Greenhouse Office document contained a range of penalties.
“The most obvious one was that if we didn’t meet the targets we would recognise the right of government to regulate the operation of the power plant,” he said.
“If it is a voluntary agreement, let’s have some words that reflect that without the appearance of draconianism.”
Reuters, 2000. Australia generators condemn greenhouse document. Reuters News, 28 August.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 369ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the Federal Government in Australia, led by John Howard, was profoundly uninterested in driving down emissions, or in anyway inconveniencing their rich mates. But they still had to have some pretend schemes, to keep green-minded voters in marginal electorates confused and (com)pliant. So, voluntary schemes. But of course, if these contained even the HINT of enforcement, fines/penalties etc, this would piss off the knuckledraggers, especially the ones hooked on brown coal…
What I think we can learn from this – kayfabe comes with costs. Not everyone is always willing to go along with pretend schemes.
What happened next – the brown coal kept getting burnt, the companies that owned the power stations kept making money. 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:
August 28, 1971 – snarky opinion piece in New York Times. Stephen Schneider rebuts days later.
August 28, 1977 – First Australian“Greenpeace” action, against whaling
August 28, 2003 – EPA says Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant