Ten years ago, on this day, September 11th, 2015,
AAP, 2015. Pacific island leaders fail to shift Australia and NZ on climate targets. The Guardian, 11 September
Pacific islands nations failed to convince Australia and New Zealand to back stronger targets on limiting global warming as the showdown at the Pacific Islands Forum on Thursday ended in a stalemate.
The 16 leaders at the forum agreed to disagree on whether to take a two degree or 1.5 degree warming limit stance to UN talks in Paris in December.
Small island nations facing rising seas pushed hard for the 1.5 degree target, saying anything higher risked their survival.
Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Port Moresby ends with leaders agreeing to disagree over whether to take 1.5 or two degree target to Paris climate talks
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 401ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it was 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 UNFCCC was stuffed from the start. The George H.W. Bush administration resisted all efforts to get targets and timetables for rich nations to reduce their emissions into the text of the treaty. Eventually, the French, who’d proposed it, raised the white flag. So we got a meaningless but nice sounding treaty with “common but differentiated responsibilities.” Everything since then can be seen as an attempt to heal that early wound. No success.
The specific context was that Paris was coming and Australia’s government was made up of climate deniers like Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. God help us.
What I think we can learn from this is that the governments of rich countries are perfectly happy with everyone else – and this is especially the case of brown people – basically dying. A few will be “let in”, for show, but the rest? They can burn or fry.
What happened next
Paris was a farce.
The 1.5 promise was made, but no action to meet it was ever taken. Now, well, 1.5 is toast and we are not going to avoid 2 or 2.5 or probably even 3. This, people, is why I didn’t breed. I could see this sort of shit coming in the 1990s. And here we are.
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:
September 11, 1961 – New York Times reports “Air Found Gaining in Carbon Dioxide”
September 11, 1973 – CIA coup topples Chilean democracy
September 11, 1989 – Bill McKibben’s “The End of Nature” published – All Our Yesterdays
September 11, 2006 – Australian climate concern hits tipping point (maybe) –