On this day, November 5 in visiting British geologist and Greenpeace climate adviser gave a speech at the National Press Club. With a Federal Election imminent in March 1993) he weighed in on Australian domestic policy, days before the so-called “National Greenhouse Response Strategy” is launched.,
A visiting environmental scientist — an expert on the greenhouse effect — has branded as “insane” the federal Coalition’s promise to cut petrol prices if it is elected.
Dr Jeremy Leggett, who works for the environmental group Greenpeace in Britain, told a National Press Club lunch yesterday that the Coalition’s plan to cut petrol prices flew in the face of world concern about global warming.
“You reduce petrol prices at the direct peril of generations of Australians to come,” he said. And – In Canberra yesterday the World Wide Fund for Nature launched what it called a “green print” for Australia’s future over the next three years.
The document called for endangered species protection legislation to be enacted this year, for the Federal Government to act on the recommendations of its ecologically sustainable development process and for ratification of conventions on climate change and biodiversity.
Leggett’s speech – “Accounting for Global Warming, Financial Institutions Wake Up To the Impacts”
Mussared, D. 1992. Pledge to cut petrol prices ‘insane‘. Canberra Times, Friday 6 November, page 5
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was xxxppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Australian ambition to do anything about climate change had been wilting for a year, and in 1992 new Prime Minister Paul Keating had basically binned all the ‘green crap’ (to use a term David Cameron later used).
All that was left was the names and jargon to throw around, disconnected from any reality, any ambition, any responsibility.
Why this matters.
We know who did this.
What happened next?
Decades of denial – hard or soft, predatory delay, “triangulation” etc.