Sixteen years ago, on this day, May 14th, 2009 the first Australian ETS legislation introduced into Parliament:
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 is introduced into the House of Representatives.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had been proposals to put a price on carbon dioxide via a tax in the early 1990s. Both had been defeated by coalitions of actors coordinated by the Business Council of Australia and what became the Minerals Council of Australia. There had been an effort by state Premiers to stitch together a “bottom-up” emissions trading scheme after it became clear that the Federal Government would not implement one (Prime Minister John Howard personally vetoed a proposal supported by the rest of his Cabinet in 2003). Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of the ALP had come to power promising climate action. Now, at last, he was introducing some deeply shitty legislation that was basically a do-as-little-as-possible-while-keeping-big-business-happy scheme. He expected it to fail the first time round, and he wasn’t disappointed.
What I think we can learn from this
Play games with the fate of the earth and don’t be surprised when it blows up in your face and people realise you are a hollow wanker. Rudd was the worst Prime Minister Australia had had for a while, imo. But then came Abbott and Morrison…
What happened next the CPRS got reintroduced as legislation in November 2009, and fell, because the Opposition toppled its leader, Malcolm Turnbull, and replaced him with an inadequate knuckle dragger called Tony Abbott. Oh god, what a horrorshow. What a soap opera scripted and directed by David Lynch, Salvador Dali and Satan.
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:
May 14, 1979 – The greenhouse effect is … “almost common knowledge” – All Our Yesterdays
May 14, 2007 – another C40 large cities summit – All Our Yesterdays
May 14, 2002 – well-connected denialists gather in Washington DC to spout #climate nonsense