Thirty one years ago, on this day, May 24th,
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Evans, has thrown doubt over a long-standing Federal Government position on greenhouse gases in a move which will alarm the business sector.
The doubts on Australia’s response to the UN Climate Change Convention were compounded by Senator Evans’ admission that Australia had recently been “rolled” on its tough stand on the Basel convention on hazardous wastes.
At a Senate Estimates Committee hearing on Tuesday [24th May], Victorian Liberal Senator Judith Troeth asked: “Has Cabinet agreed that Australia will not implement measures under the climate change convention which would damage our competitiveness, unless other countries also do so?”
Gill, P. 1994. Minister signals change of policy on greenhouse gas. The Australian Financial Review, 26 May, p.6.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the Australian Government had, initially, in 1989 made the right noises about a climate treaty, but by 1992 opposition within the Labor government had hardened. Although Australia signed up and ratified the UNFCCC, it also started looking for loopholes to avoid any real commitments. The specific context was that this is before the treaty became international law. They knew that that was coming, and they knew that there would be a Conference of the Parties, and they wanted to start getting their retaliation in first.
What I think we can learn from this. This is not “the bad guys.” This is not the evil cloven hooves, tail with a triangle on the end, horns on head Howard Government (boo, hiss!). This is that nice, cuddly, social democratic government led by Paul Keating. It’s important to remember this.
What happened next. Most of the political elite and industry fought tooth and nail against a domestic carbon tax, which would have been the thing to keep the international climate negotiations sweet. And they sent the Environment Minister, John Faulkner, to the Berlin COP without much more than promises to maybe take action at some point. There was a National Greenhouse Response Strategy by this time, but it was farcical. No one took it seriously. Ultimately then, once the next government came in, they stopped even pretending to give a shit about the UNFCCC, and played hardball, which is why they got the incredibly generous deal at Kyoto (which they still didn’t ratify). I could go on for hours.
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 24, 1953 – NYT on “How industry may change climate” – All Our Yesterdays
May 24, 1954 – Swedes study the climate…
May 24, 2000- Australian denialist nutjobs have nutjob jamboree
May 24, 2004 – “The Day After Tomorrow” released – All Our Yesterdays
May 24, 2015 – Is the Pope an environmentalist? Why yes, yes he is.