Twenty years ago, on this day, May 25th,
“If you genuinely tell people that building a wind farm here will save the planet from climate change you are doing a massive disservice to the environment. It is an atrocious misleading of the Australian community.”
Ian Campbell, Senate Estimates ECITA Committee, 25 May 2006, p.116.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 3xxppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that by this time, the Howard Government was beginning to look clapped out and tired. The first couple of environment ministers who had been intelligent and slick had been replaced by someone who was maybe not in their league, and he was starting to look idiotic, as was the government.
The specific context was that by this time, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Westpac and other organisations had released their “business case for early (sic) action on climate change.” The Millennium drought was ongoing. There was going to be an UNFCCC negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which Australia still hadn’t ratified. Mostly though, Prime Minister John Howard was just beginning to look like he wasn’t quite on top of things. There was a technology deal with the United States and Korea, the AP6, but it wasn’t really convincing people, and there was clearly going to be trouble ahead on climate and environment generally.
What I think we can learn from this. Governments get tired, and the good ministers burn out, or flame out, and they are replaced by second or third rate is and then you go into a death spiral.
What happened next. Howard lost the 2007 election, and incoming Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd deployed all of his considerable skill, humility and tact to usher Australia into a wonderful climate politics where sharp emissions reductions were combined with a realistic adaptation policy and… oh, come on. You know what happened.
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 25, 1953 – “I read about them in Time Magazine” (Gilbert Plass’s greenhouse warning
May 25, 1962- JFK speaks to a Conservation conference
May 25, 1990 – Thatcher opens Hadley Centre
May 25, 1992 Keating Cabinet discusses Rio – All Our Yesterdays
May 25 – Interview with Ben King – of #climate, education and the need for tubas
May 25, 2011 – Aussie #climate scientist smeared rather than engaged. Plus ca change…