Twenty six years ago, on this day, August 21st, 2000,
One of the Federal Government’s key boasts on greenhouse gases that it is legislating so electricity suppliers must increase their power from renewable sources by 2 per cent by 2010 has been called a hoax.
According to industry estimates, growth is occurring at that rate anyway.
And the Opposition has been criticised for signalling that it will pass the Government’s Renewable Energy Bill in its present form, which allows burning wood from native forests to create energy to be taken into account in determining whether the target has been met.
At present, 10.7 per cent of the country’s energy comes from renewable sources. The bill would lift that to 12.7 per cent by 2010. The bill, which also applies to major electricity buyers, such as the aluminium industry, will go to the Senate later this month.
The Australian Conservation Foundation yesterday accused Dr Sharman Stone, parliamentary secretary to the Environment Minister, Senator Hill, of issuing a misleading media release. It had said wind farms, solar-driven manufacturing, tidal power and energy from methane were “destined to become a growing part of Australia’s energy options” because of the legislation.
“This is the great renewable hoax,” the foundation’s campaign director, Mr John Connor, said. “It will be woodchip-driven stuff, and there’s basic problems … legislation which just won’t drive the kind of industries [we should] base the economy on.”
Clennell, A. 2000. Government Greenhouse Gases Boast A Hoax, Says Environmental Group. Sydney Morning Herald, August 22, p.8.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 370ppm. As of 2026, 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 Australian governments, state and federal, had intermittently made supportive noises in the general direction of renewables, but had usually not provided funding or significant financial incentives. My favourite example is how in 1994-95 a proposal for a carbon tax where some of the profits were hypothecated towards research and development of renewables was shot down by opponents within the Labor Party before it got to cabinet.
The specific context was in 1997 ahead of the Kyoto conference, Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard had, with some fanfare, produced a Safeguarding the Future policy, which included a promise of a 2% renewables per target for Australian electricity provision. Howard then slow-walked the policy implementation, so that it became a much smaller amount, and here we see various environmental groups pointing this out for all the good it did.
What I think we can learn from this is that at time of writing or narrating, John Howard is still alive, and there is still time to get him to The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity and other species, and he has very little defence, And standing next to him in the dock should be Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, and most of all Anthony Albanese, Julia Gillard squeaks her way out by the skin of her teeth, but as well as these meat puppets, lots of industry figures whose names we barely know should also be in the dock as well and this will not happen.
What happened next LETAG. Vestas (LINKS)
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
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Also on this day:
August 21, 1961 – The UN holds a “new sources of energy” conference
August 21, 1972 – Nature editor John Maddox says C02-temperature fear “found wanting”
August 21, 1986 – Lake Nyos disaster
August 21, 2004 – The Australian reports on Howard cabinet split over ETS