Twenty four years ago, on this day, August 2nd, 2002,
2002 Communicating Climate Change, Tickell editorial
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 374ppm. As of 2026, 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 Crispin Tickell had been switched on to the problem of carbon dioxide build up while at Harvard on a sabbatical in 1975-76. In 1976 his paper was circulating around Whitehall, and this was a good year for it, given the drought, but ultimately it came to nothing. Tickell was, by 79-80, working for the European Commission and had tried to get a more detailed paper on carbon dioxide to be discussed at the Venice G7. He had failed and he had kept plugging away through the 80s and had eventually convinced Margaret Thatcher, who was impressed by Tickell and his sang froid, to take up the issue. But the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had hit the rocks, and by 2002 the fact that the president selected by the Supreme Court, President George W. Bush, had pulled out of Kyoto meant that the entire concept of international agreements around emissions reductions was on life support.
What I think we can learn from this is that Tickell had spent a very long time trying to get this issue on the agenda, poor sod, and had seen it beaten back many times.
What happened next The UNFCCC process staggered on. The Russians ratified Kyoto, making it international law. That’s L A W, rather than LORE, though the latter applies, and then the last chance to save the world conference in Copenhagen ended in failure, so they held another last chance to save the world conference in Paris in 2015 and that ended in glorious success, as we all know.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
August 2, 1970 – LA Times runs #climate change front page story
August 2, 1972, Paul Goodman dies
August 2, 1991- Pledge and Review…
August 2, 1992 – Canberra Times reporting that Jastrow idiot #RelevanceDeprivationSyndrome
August 2, 2000 – BHP shows its true colours
August 2, 2007 – Russia plants a flag on the Arctic sea-bed.