Thirty years ago, on this day, August 28th, 1996, “International Energy and Environment Conference”, Sydney, organised by Business Council of Australia.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 362ppm. 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 the Business Council of Australia, which had been set up in 1983, had played a pivotal role in defeating proposals for effective and progressive ecologically sustainable development in the late 1980s early 1990s. Not through the force of its intellect, but by good old-fashioned lobbying. And BCA and people from the Minerals Council of Australia had also set up the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which had been massively successful in coordinating opposition to the 1994-95 carbon tax. Here we see the BCA keeping the flame alive, because although there is a new government, you can never be too safe.
The specific context was there are federal elections every three years in Australia, and so new Liberal Prime Minister John Howard might crash and burn, and the whole question of carbon dioxide build up and what to do about it might – just might – return. So BCA needs to keep its hand in the game, it needs to keep its networks being constantly refreshed, and it needs to be able to fire warning shots across the bows when required.
What I think we can learn from this a good, as in effective, as in vicious and evil incumbent trade association will be doing stuff like this. It won’t look like much, it won’t scream “evil bastard” at you, but if you know how to read the signs, then you’ll see it for what it is, And you can tell me that words like evil are unacademic and unhelpful and analytic dead ends, and I can say yes, and I don’t give a fuck. Enjoy your career as an asshole.
What happened next Howard served himself and his rich business mates for another 10 years until being kicked out by the voters both as Prime Minister and as MP. By that time the damage had been done. Would Labour have been particularly different? Well, thanks to Tampa in 2001 we will never know.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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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 28, 1971 – snarky opinion piece in New York Times. Stephen Schneider rebuts days later
August 28, 1977 – First Australian“Greenpeace” action, against whaling
August 28, 2003 – EPA says Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant