Twenty-years ago, on this day, April 24th, 2004, the business outfit the “Climate Group” was launched, with a speech by Tony Blair.
24 April 2004 Launch of the Climate Group. Blair speaks at it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3662303.stm
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the UNFCCC process was potentially coming back on board with Kyoto moving towards ratification. Businesses were worrying. The Global Climate Coalition was dead. There was a space for new business activity. And along comes the Climate Group launched today but probably conceived a couple of years before.
What we learn is that the early 2000s mark a kind of shift, there is that split in business between what the headbangers have wanted and succeeded in destroying, i.e. destroying high ambition. And then there’s all the other companies, which might make money from the green transition, or can just read a bloody Keeling curve, and see that there’s trouble ahead.
What happened next, the Climate Group had its peak years probably in the run up to Copenhagen. It’s still going. I’m not quite sure why. There is now a coalition called “we mean business” as well. But there’s always a proliferation of these groups, I guess, representing slightly different interests and making work for well-meaning but fundamentally dim technocrats.
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: