Seventeen years ago, on this day, April 30th, 2007, new Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd hires an economist…
On 30 April 2007, the leader of the federal opposition Australian Labor Party, Kevin Rudd,(along with the state and territory governments) engaged world renowned economist Professor Ross Garnaut to conduct a wide ranging review into the effects of climate change on Australia and its economy (Garnaut 2008).
(Rice and Martin, 2016:48)
and
BRISBANE, April 30 AAP – The federal opposition has commissioned an economics professor to head a Stern-type review into the impact of climate change on Australia’s future.
Labor leader Kevin Rudd announced the Garnaut Climate Change Review in Brisbane today, saying it would outline the threat to the country’s economic prosperity and investigate mitigation strategies.
It will be headed by Australian National University economics Professor Ross Garnaut, who will hand down interim findings mid next year, and a completed report by October 2008.
Marszalek, J. 2007 Fed: Opposition commissions Australia’s own climate report. Australian Associated Press General News, April 30
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that new opposition leader Kevin Rudd was using climate as a stick to beat John Howard with, in much the same way that the UK Conservative leader David Cameron was using climate issue as a way to detoxify the Tory brand at more or less the same time.
The broader context was that there had been multiple efforts to get emissions trading schemes going. Two had happened at the federal level in 200- and 2003, defeated by Tim Nick Minchin and John Howard, respectively. And also state led States led Emissions Trading had been on the agenda. So for example, especially the Victorian and New South Wales Premiers Bob Carr, leading the charge. And Garnautr who had been involved in some of that was a well respected economist who’d worked for Hawke on opening up the Australian economy, ie, reducing tariff barriers.
What we learn is that policy might be good or bad, but it gets used as a blunt instrument in political wars to its cost. Because once it becomes part of political war, implementation is fragile and reversal is possible. That’s what happened in this case. (this is not an argument for pas devant les enfants technocracy, btw).
What happened next Garnaut produced his final report rather in the middle of the following year, but by that time, Rudd as prime minister had set up a parallel process and Garnaut was kind of on the outer. The parallel process gave us the CPRS bless it and you know, the rest.
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:
April 30, 1985 – New York Times reports C02 not the only greenhouse problem