Sixteen years ago, on this day, September 15th, 2010,
THE world’s biggest mining company, BHP Billiton, is urging the Gillard government to impose a tax on carbon before any international agreement.
This is in order to protect Australia’s long-term economic interests. BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers has also warned the government not to try to change the terms of the pre-election mining tax deal negotiated with the big three miners.
In a major address yesterday, Mr Kloppers made it clear the mining industry did not intend to be passive in the face of the political uncertainty created by minority government.
BP bod Marius Kloppers speech to Australian Business Chamber of Commerce http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2010/9/16/cleantech/their-words-marius-kloppers
Hewett, J. 2010. BHP boss Marius Kloppers: It’s time for carbon tax. The Australian, September 16
SEE FOR POLITICAL ANALYSIS OF THIS – (Effendi and Courvisanos, 2012: 251)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 390ppm. 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 BP had been looking at the greenhouse effect in the late 1980s as a way of flogging more uranium. It had also been mildly perturbed by the resources tax proposal of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and here we see them stirring the pot, talking about a carbon tax, global carbon tax, which is one of those delay techniques, because you know it will never happen.
The specific context was that Julia Gillard had become Prime Minister. There was an election campaign happening.
What I think we can learn from this is that incumbents like BHP, who’d also been involved in the so-called Greenhouse Challenge bullshit, are pretty astute when they want to be and can claim brownie points for advocating things that they know aren’t going to happen.
What happened next Gillard did not win the next election, but she was able to form a minority government, the price of which, though, was that she introduced carbon pricing, leading to real hilarity (ymmv).
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:
September 15, 1830 – Manchester-Liverpool railway opened
September 15, 1980 – Australian scientists hold “Carbon Dioxide and Climate” symposium in Canberra
September 15, 1982/1990 – “Environmental Justice” is born. And so is Captain Planet…
September 15,1990 – Captain Planet launches
September 15, 1996 – A CCS posterchild is born: Sleipner Field comes online.
September 15, 2005 – “A Citizen’s Guide to Climate Refugees launched by FOE Australia”
September 15, 2008- business splits over what to extort from Rudd…