Author: drmarchudson

Thirty two years ago, on this day, October 10th, 1994,

The Federal Government has appealed for more time to meet its greenhouse gas emission commitments amid increasing international pressure for a tougher world response at a Climate Change meeting in Berlin next March.

The appeal from the Federal Minister for the Environment, Senator Faulkner, follows his recent admission that Australia’s own efforts at reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been less than successful.

Senator Faulkner told an environmental conference in New Zealand yesterday that Australia would not be in a position to sign an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions at the March 1994 [sic] meeting in Berlin…. But Senator Faulkner’s delayed admission that Australia will not meet its targets for greenhouse gas emissions has been criticised by the Australian Mining Industry Council’s new executive director, Mr David Buckingham.

“Too often in the recent past, Australia has been caught short in its appreciation of both the potential and likely impacts of new treaty instruments,” Mr Buckingham told an AMIC workshop yesterday.

“This is only likely to change if a far closer process of community and industry involvement with the development of Australia’s negotiating position is achieved,” he said. “Damage limitation assessment after the event is not a responsible, or effective, way in which to proceed.”

Dwyer, M. 1994. Canberra wants more time to meet greenhouse gas pledges. The Australian Financial Review, October 11.

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 the Australian political elites had by this time been well informed and gotten sick and tired of the greenhouse gas build up issue, and they had said no to a carbon tax once before in the period 1991-92 and here we see a second bite at that cherry.

The specific context was that John Faulkner had thought it was a good idea to bring in a carbon tax, because this would raise some revenue, and it would also be something to show at the first conference of the parties to be held in March-April of 1995. Otherwise, Australia would be basically empty-handed. But there were difficulties, of course, because the carbon tax was hated by the people who would have to pay it. Also, the very principle! Accepting a carbon tax is then admitting that greenhouse gases are a problem, and it has knock-on reputational effects.

What I think we can learn from this is that it’s now pushing 40 years of policy failure on climate change and that’s not going to change. We have fundamentally and totally missed the opportunity to do anything meaningful. Even with enormous efforts, it was still going to be really fucking difficult. We made no significant efforts, and it’s going to be hell on earth, and on the oceans, and in the skies, and everywhere. 

What happened next Australia got a carbon price, very briefly, between 2012 and 2014.

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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: 

October 10, 1977 – famous scientist Solly Zuckerman writes to top UK Civil Servant, warning about climate change – All Our Yesterdays

October 10, 1997 – Australian businesses say ‘yes’ to a decent Kyoto deal – All Our Yesterdays