Author: drmarchudson

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UNFCCC United Nations

November 25, 2000 – CoP meeting ends in official disarray…

On this day, November 25, 2000, the global climate negotiations in the Hague collapsed without a formal end of the conference, which had to be “continued” in Bonn the following year. You can read all about it here 

COP6 had seen various protests (see here)  by direct action types, who, in those far-off innocent pre-September 11 days even managed to storm the main stage,  and also some of the first discussions of “climate justice”

The Australian business lobby was there in force, of course – 

“Business is scared the Europeans will get their way at The Hague, and that Australia won’t get the sinks or other concessions that would allow it to go on polluting as long as it planted trees or took other measures. Australian industry has a big team at The Hague: on the government delegation will be John Eyles from the Australian Greenhouse Industry Network, and Maria Robertson from Comalco will be on the New Zealand delegation. And there are observers from the BCA, Rio Tinto, ICF Kaiser, Origin Energy, ACL, Woodside Energy, the Australian Gas Association, the Aluminium Council, BHP, Hancock NRG, the ACCI and others.”

Clennell, A. 2000. Taking Care Of Business. Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November, p.15.

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 369ppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this. Three years previously rich nations had grudgingly agreed a piss-weak “Kyoto Protocol”, but that still hadn’t been ratified by the USA (was never gonna get through the Senate) or Australia.  Earlier that month George Bush had been selected by the supreme court, after losing the popular vote (who remembers ‘hanging chads’?)

Why this matters. 

It was all clear, and protesters were doing their best, 22 years ago.

What happened next?

The COP circus has kept going (you may have noticed). The Kyoto Protocol finally became live  in 2005, after a Russian quid pro quo for WTO membership.  The follow-up (Copenhagen) went down in flames. Then the French came up with a “pledge and review” compromise. Guess what, nobody is really pledging, and nobody is reviewing…This was all predictable, and indeed predicted.

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Australia United States of America

November 24, 1977 – Canberra Times reports “all coal” plan would “flood US cities”

On this day, November 24 in 1978, the Canberra Times ran a story “All coal plan to flood cities”, based on a UPI wire story about an American Physical Society meeting the day before in Florida where Dr Peter Fong called an all-coal energy policy “tantamount to suicide”

, 

1977 All coal plan to flood cities Canberra Times…p. 4.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110879451?searchTerm=All%20coal%20plan%20to%20flood%20cities#

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 334ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

Why this matters. 

By the late 1970s, carbon dioxide from coal and other fossil fuels was beginning to be publicly talked about as a SERIOUS long-term threat, around the world.

What happened next?

There was a late 1970s attempt to get international action. It failed. We went instead for a second Cold War, bleeding the Soviet Union to death and then rolling drunk on triumphalism into the 1990s…  By which time the chance to take a different path was… well, you know the rest…

Categories
Activism Ignored Warnings United Kingdom

November 23, 1968 – “Hell upon Earth” warning about environmental destruction,inc. climate…

On this day, November 23, 1968  Lord Ritchie Calder gave a presidential address to the Conservation Society (a British NGO from the mid 60s to the late 1980s). Its cheerful title? Hell Upon Earth.

And among the litany of dangers ahead, this on climate change….

“It has been estimated that, at the present rate of increase (6,000 million tonnes a year) mean annual temperature all over the world might increase by 3.6 degrees centigrade in the next forty to fifty years, The experts may argue about the time factor and even about the effects but certain things are apparent, not only in the industrialised northern hemisphere but in the southern hemisphere. The north-polar ice-cap is thinning and shrinking. The seas with their blanket of carbon dioxide are changing their temperature with the result that marine plant life is increasing and is transpiring more carbon dioxide. With this combination fish are migrating, changing even their latitudes. On land the snow line is retreating and glaciers are melting.”

Calder’s speech wsa reported in the New York Times on the 24th

“Hell on Earth”  NYT article – LONDON, Nov. 23 — Lord Ritchie-Calder, president of the Conservation Society, painted a gloomy picture today of the future of the world because too many “ignorant men are pretending to be knowledgeable.”

And in the Observer by John Davy

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 323ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

Why this matters. 

I used to think that unless you were particularly switched on, then climate change wasn’t really on your radar until 1988.  Then I pushed that back to the late 1970s… then…

What happened next?

Calder kept at it – see his widely-syndicated “Selling off the Old Homestead”, originally in Foreign Affairs, in January 1970

Categories
Australia

November 22, 2002 – private business battles on #climate become public in Australia

On this day, November 22 2002, the nasty spat within Australian business over whether to call for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol broke out into public., with an article “Big business splits over greenhouse” by Miranda McLachlan in the Australian Financial Review

The dominant big business association, the Business Council of Australia, had backed Prime Minister John Howard in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol (even though Australia had been able to extort an absurdly generous “reduction” target of … an 8 per cent increase in emissions (more once you added the land-clearing loophole.

But over time, key business leaders – proponents of renewables, carbon trading etc, fought within the BCA for a change in its position.  They fought each other to a standstill, as reported in the Fin, and the BCA went to a “no position” position on Kyoto ratification…

See also – Bell, S. (2008). Rethinking the Role of the State: Explaining Business Collective Action at the Business Council of Australia. Polity, Vol. 40,. 4, 464-487

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 373ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

Why this matters. 

When the business lobby splits, that’s when the fun starts. Which is why incumbent actors work so hard to stop those splits…

What happened next?

Howard held the line. Public pressure on climate only really kicked in in Australia in the second half of 2006.  The BCA promptly moved to various fall back positions.

The emissions kept climbing. The atmospheric concentrations kept climbing. Then came the ‘natural’ disasters.

Categories
Denial IPCC Science

November 21, 1994 – Skeptic invited to engage with IPCC (Spoiler, he doesn’t)

On this day, November 21, an invitation to climate “skeptic” Pat Michaels to take part in the IPCC’s second assessment report was sent by a lead author, Tom Wigley.

“Patrick Michaels was invited to contribute to Chapter 8. He declined to do so. One of the lead authors of Chapter 8, Tom Wigley, wrote to Pat Michaels on November 21, 1994, and on February 21, 1995, soliciting comments on the portrayal of Michaels’s Franklin Institute paper in a December 8, 1994 version of Chapter 8. Prof. Michaels did not respond to these requests.”

Gelbspan, R. (1998)   Page 235 [Compare to Saudis not attending ad hoc group that Houghton organised at end of 1995 in Madrid!!  Easiest way is to not turn up, then continue sniping!!]

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 359ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

The first IPCC assessment report, in 1990, had come under attack by the usual suspects of oil industry lobbyists and various goons (see here).  The climate denial machine geared up, knowing that they would need to get ahead of the game for the second assessment report, to weaken and discredit in advance.

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that the scientists did provide the information. The politicians chose to ignore it. The social movements were not good enough – they were outgunned and outspent. The propaganda blitzes, and the institutional biases away from truth and sanity were too strong.

What happened next?

Michaels declined Wigley’s offer.

The second assessment report came out, and sure enough, the denialist machine launched as ferocious attack on it as it could manage.

Categories
United Kingdom

November 20, 1974 – BBC airs “The Weather Machine”

On this day, November 20, 1974, the BBC showed a documentary “The Weather Machine”, which makes glancing and largely dismissive mention of carbon dioxide build-up as a cause of the changing weather patterns by then being studied more intently…

“On Wednesday evening, immediately  following The Frost Interview, the BBC broadcast its much heralded, prestige extravaganza The Weather Machine (BBC2, November 20, 9.00 p.m.); the latest in a series of annual productions which began so successfully back in 1970 with Violent Universe. Excellently assisted by the studio commentary of Magnus Magnusson, the modulated narrative tones of Eric Porter and, more importantly, by the availability of a six figure budget, producer Alec Nisbett endeavoured to squeeze into 120 minutes of airspace the fruits of twelve months globetrotting “

Nature 22nd November1974

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 330ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – from the early 1970s, a series of extreme weather events made the weather, well, newsworthy….

Why this matters. 

We should be fair to folks back then- there was a lot of different data and arguments out there. With hindsight it is “obvious” that carbon dioxide was definitely the culprit. Hindsight is famously 20/20…

What happened next?

Through the 1970s climate scientists became more and more convinced of what was going on, what was coming – sooner or later.  They tried to raise the alarm…

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage Uncategorized United Kingdom

November 19, 2007 – Gordon Brown announces first Carbon Capture and Storage competition at WWF event

On this day, November 19, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the first CCS competition…

Carbon capture Government ministers have been giving speeches about the carbon capture competition for months. Mr Darling talked about it in the Pre-Budget Review. But Gordon Brown’s speech did not hesitate to bring it forward as a completely new idea. ‘I can announce today that we are launching a competition to build […] one of the […] first commercial CCS […] projects’.

He also mentioned the agreement between China and the UK to work together on Near Zero Emission Coal. He said it was the first of its kind. It was not. Australia and China signed a similar deal in September.

CCS had been swirling around for a few years by now. BP had wanted to get it going (with Enhanced Oil Recovery) at a site in Scotland, but Treasury wouldn’t give it the ROCs (renewable obligation certificates) to make the numbers add up….

Why this matters

If you know you’re history, you will know where you’re coming from…

What happened next

First CCS competition fizzles out in 2011. Second one, begun 2012, killed off abruptly in November 2015.  Third time lucky?

Categories
International processes

November 19, 1990 – “The US should agree to stabilising CO2 levels”

On this day, November 19, 1990, recently-sacked from the White House official William (“Bill”) Nitze (see here and here) had a letter published in the Financial Times (all the smartest people have, of course).

Sir, The US should join other OECD nations in committing itself to the stabilisation of carbon dioxide emissions at current levels by 2000 or shortly thereafter, as I have argued at greater length in my report, Greenhouse Warming; Formulating a Convention, (published by Chatham House). Its refusal to do so at the recently concluded Second World Climate Conference makes no sense economically or politically.

Nitze, W. 1990. Letter: Leadership tests for President Bush. Financial Times, 19 November.

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 353ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

Bush was trying to keep the US from having to sign anything that would actually restrict the “freedom” of oil, gas, coal and auto companies having to DO anything. In this he was successful…

Why this matters. 

There was a fierce battle. The “good guys” lost.  The war went on, but the key battle was lost early on, and we don’t even remember it.

What happened next?

The “targets and timetables in the Treaty, dammit” people lost. Bush and Sununu and that crowd delivered the goods for their mates.  The end.

Categories
International processes Uncategorized

November 18, 1989 – Small Island States say “er, we gotta do something before the waves close over our heads”

On this day, November 18 in 1989, small island states made one of the first of their many many declarations of “stop burning the damn fossil fuels.” Usual impact, or rather, release the Male Declaration on Global Warming and Sea Level Rise.

https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/81035?ln=en#record-files-collapse-header

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 353ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

By 1987, in diplomatic circles, it was clear a climate change debate was coming, and that there might conceivably be another of those toothless UN treaties that keeps bureaucrats busy and happy.  The issue exploded in the second half of 1988. By 1989 everyone was making stern proclamations of this that and the other. This was one of them, albeit from people with more to lose, and in the shorter term, than others.

Why this matters. 

We knew. We do not lack knowledge. We lack courage and power.

What happened next?

Maldives kept on keeping on about climate – who can forget the underwater cabinet meeting of 2009. Etc.

Categories
International processes Science Scientists

November 17, 1980 – International meeting about carbon dioxide build up.

On this day in 1980 an international gathering of scientists took place in Villlach, Austria.

“The first major initiative to result from the establishment of the WCP was an international conference on climate change, held in Villach, Austria, from 17 to 22 November 1980. Under the chairmanship of Professor Bert Bolin of the University of Stockholm, the delegates issued a warning that the accumulation of greenhouse gases posed a great risk to the earth’s natural equilibria; they declared that the issue consequently had to be addressed with some urgency. Although their pronouncement drew some attention, its political impact was negligible.”

(Rowlands,1995: 71-2)  

 https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=3173

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 338.7ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

Why this matters

This is part of the long slow growth of awareness and concern

What happened next.
One of the attendees was Australian scientist Graeme Pearman. Later that year, in September 1980, the Australian Academy of Science held a symposium about carbon dioxide build-up in Canberra.

In 1985 another Villach meeting set the international ball properly rolling, thanks to US Senators paying close attention…

And the emissions? Oh, they kept climbing.  Of course they did. I mean, we didn’t stop burning the fossil fuels, did we?