Thirty four years ago, on this day, November 6, 1989, an international meeting about climate change began in Norway. It was one of many.in that period. It was to review the progress of the then-new IPCC and have discussions about a possible treaty (opposed by the US).
“Attendees included ministers of 68 countries. The goal of the conference was creating a binding agreement on CO₂ emissions, which almost succeeded. The conference was organized by the Dutch environment minister Ed Nijpels and prepared by climatologist Pier Vellinga.[3]
The United States, Japan, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom did not want to make an agreement about the reduction of emissions. Even discussions about stabilizing emissions turned out to be difficult”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noordwijk_Climate_Conference
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the US had been doing its level best to prevent any discussion of rich nations adopting targets for emissions reductions. Japan and Great Britain and the Soviet Union were also onboard with that. There had been a meeting at The Hague to try to kick this loose. The big nations were not invited. By Nordwijk it was all becoming a bit uncomfortable. But if you read Nathaniel Rich’s version, you get the idea that because Bill Reilly invited the wrong underling it all went tits up. It’s a little bit more complicated than that. And the brutal review of Losing Earth that I mentioned last year, it’s really worth reading.
What I think we can learn from this
Statecraft is statecraft is statecraft.
What happened next
A flurry of meetings in 1990, on climate, environment, development etc. Culminated in the Second World Climate Conference. Then the negotiations for a climate treaty…
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.