Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, November 14th, 1997,
The Federal Government is growing concerned about the threat of trade sanctions against Australia should it refuse to sign the global deal aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the world conference on climate change in Kyoto next month.
According to a confidential Australian Government briefing paper in the hands of The Australian Financial Review, the Government is seeking to have the World Trade Organisation treaty override any agreement reached by nations signing the United Nations’ Climate Change Convention that aims to significantly curb CO emissions, which many believe cause global warming.
“Australia’s proposed language also sends a message to parties that efforts to include trade measures against parties as possible penalties for non-compliance would be subject to strict disciplines,” the briefing paper says.
More specifically, the paper proposes that the Kyoto agreement should “not derogate from the rights and obligations of parties under existing international agreements and, in particular, shall not derogate from the provisions of the agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation or affect the rights and obligations of members of the WTO”.
An official has commented in handwriting beside Australia’s proposed text: “This is the most powerful safeguard we can devise to preclude or make it very difficult for parties to use the protocol to invoke trade sanctions on non-parties or non-complying parties who might very well be energy exporters [and] exporters of energy-intensive products.”
While the official Australian position is that it wants to play a leading role in the deliberations over the climate change convention, the briefing paper is a further sign that Australia is preparing the ground for opting out of the Kyoto agreement.
McCathie, A. 1997. Australia heating up over trade threat. The Australian Financial Review, November 14, p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 364ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Australia had been a foot-dragger or worse on climate negotiations for several years now.
The specific context was Prime Minister John Howard was trying to get other nations to agree Australia was exceptional and should not be under the cosh for emissions reductions at the upcoming Kyoto conference.
Here he was clearly thinking about plan-B, in case things went wrong at Kyoto.
What I think we can learn from this – everyone “venue shops”.
What happened next – Australia got its sweet sweet deal at Kyoto. Still refused to ratify. Meanwhile, the WTO became instrumental in climate policy in an unusual way – In 2004 Russia agreed to ratify Kyoto in (tacit) exchange for membership of the WTO.
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:
November 14, 2005 – Downing St blocked with coal – All Our Yesterdays
November 14, 2013, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s 50th #climate speech