Thirty two years ago, on this day, September 29th, 1994,
A BROAD cross-section of Australian business yesterday took a cautious first step towards a Federal Government proposal for voluntary commitments by the corporate sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But earlier aspirations by Canberra for a major new greenhouse initiative to be announced in the short term were dampened with the corporate sector signalling it would not be rushed into any new undertakings.
The Industry Greenhouse Network – a coalition of nearly 30 business interests including such corporate giants as BHP and CRA and groups such as the Business Council of Australia – met with senior officials from the departments of Primary Industries, Environment, Industry, and Prime Minister and Cabinet, in Canberra yesterday.
The meeting considered a major new tack in the Federal Government’s response to the greenhouse gas problem built around voluntary undertakings by the corporate sector which would include energy efficiency and energy-saving measures.
Gill, P. 1994. Business edges towards Collins plan to reduce greenhouse gases. Australian Financial Review, 30 September.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 359ppm. 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 having defeated the relatively vague idea for a domestic carbon tax in ‘91-92 the big end of town, represented by the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Mining Industry Council, etc. was presumably quite irritated to see that carbon tax proposal was back on the agenda, thanks to the advocacy of the Australian Conservation Foundation and Senator John Faulkner’s receptivity to it. So the BCA and MCA, or AMIC, as it was then known, had set up a back room operation called the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, and here they were doing the standard emollient “let’s have a voluntary scheme” ploy, which works almost every time.
What I think we can learn from this is that voluntary schemes are sort of a second manoeuvre of trade associations and sectors, after trying to keep the issue off the agenda by ignoring it and pushing back at it has failed. See also Nigel Balchin and Darkness Falls.
What happened next They got what they wanted. The proposal for a carbon tax was defeated, and a voluntary scheme known as the Greenhouse Challenge was brought in in its place. The Greenhouse Challenge was basically worthless. It provided consultancy fees for a few people, a bit of a pale green glow for a while, but everyone had to stop pretending.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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Also on this day:
September 29, 2006 – Democrats say political appointees suppressing evidence of warming
September 29, 2007 – World’s first nuclear power station is demolished