On this day, June 18, 2008, the Australian Federal Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, introduced a Carbon Capture and Storage bill into the Australian parliament. [The draft legislation had been unveiled in May 2008]. See here for a good account of the introduced legislation.
Because, you know, carbon capture and storage is definitely a real response to a real problem, not a fantasy of techno-salvationism that will keep us from doing what we actually need to do.
The context is that the previous government, of John Howard, had tolerated loose talk of carbon capture and storage as a way of deflecting concerns about climate change. With the arrival of Kevin Rudd, from Queensland (where they dig up and burn a lotta coal), the CCS thing kicked into higher gear, with an alliance of the producers, the coal union (the CFMEU) and even a couple of NGOs (looking at you, WWF and the now-defunct Climate Institute).
Some of my earliest Conversation articles were about this stuff. This one, co-written with the wonderful Christopher Wright, is worth a look –
Time and money we spend on CCS is time and money we don’t spend on retooling an economy and a society to use a LOT less.
But, also, CCS was our only shot, given that the world is going to continue to burn absurd amounts of fossil fuels. Both these statements can be true at the same time. We’re toast.
What happened next?
CCS fell in a heap in Australia by the end of 2010. It gets reheated occasionally, for political reasons. Chevron’s Gorgon facility is not working. Did I mention we’re toast?
On this day, 17 June 2009, as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was playing parliamentary and political games with his “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme,” Tasmanian Greens Senator Christine Milne gave a blistering and prescient speech at the National Press Club
“Would you put your son or daughter on an aeroplane if you knew that it had a 50-90% chance of crashing? If not, why would you take that risk with the whole planet?”
Fortunately, sections like this below are now completely irrelevant.
“In Australia, the dominant economic, social and therefore Labor and Coalition view, is that resource extraction underpins wealth, power and influence — always has and always will. Regardless of the physical capacity of the Earth to sustain it, regardless of the collapse of the Murray Darling or the climate impact of burning more coal or logging more forests, nothing will stand in the way of that extraction continuing. All policies to address climate change are seen through that cultural lens.
“It is why, when people hear the climate science telling us that, if we do not act swiftly and decisively, the world we hand on to our children will be a very different, much poorer world, so many jump through hoops to deny it, to explain it away, or to pretend that we can compromise with the laws of physics and chemistry to suit own imperatives. It is no wonder, as Ian Dunlop observed recently, “climate policy and climate science are like ships passing in the night.”
And this too.
The truth is the climate nightmare is real and happening now. We are destroying the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu and the snow caps. We are eroding our beaches, and our coastal cities will face managed retreat due to sea level rise. We are drying our food bowl, the Murray Darling, beyond repair, jeopardising rural communities and our food security.
Many of our Asia Pacific neighbours are struggling with rising seas and extreme weather which threatens a refugee crisis beyond anything we’ve ever seen.
Read it. Read it and weep.
Why this matters.
People get written out of history. Oddly, this seems to happen more to women than men. It’s a puzzle why, and I am sure our best scientists (meaning, of course, the males) might eventually come up with some explanation.
We knew. We were warned, again and again and again. And the glib, slick careerists (more males than females, but females can do that too you know) just kept on keeping on.
What happened next?
Rudd’s CPRS never got through because the evil wicked awful Greens voted against it. (And the ALP then refused to countenance the Greens’ proposal for a temporary carbon tax, though the ALP goons never mention that). After the 2010 Federal election, the Greens and the independents forced the ALP government to do something about climate legislation. Milne then sat on the MPCCC (Multiparty committee on climate change). And we got an ETS, CEFC, ARENA. The ETS got killed off by Abbott, day one.
On 19 February 2013 Senator Christine Milne, as Leader of the Greens, returned to the Press Club and gave the following speech – “Australian Democracy at the Crossroads: the mining industry and the quarry past versus the people and the innovative future”,
On this day, June 16, in 1972 the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, concluded. Four years in the making it had acted as a magnet for lots of various concerns. It also acted as a punctuation point – the end of the first big wave of public concern about environmental matters (the next wave wouldn’t really get going until the mid-late 80s).
What did Stockholm give us? Well, the United Nations Environment Program, albeit at a much lower size and heft than some wanted. UNEP proved crucial as an institutional ally for the World Meteorological Organisation and various groups of scientists trying to get carbon dioxide build up properly on and then up the agenda.
But on the same day, and more interesting,, was the release of the song “Five Years” by David Bowie (it had been recorded in November 1971).
Pushing thru the market square So many mothers sighing News had just come over, We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us Earth was really dying Cried so much his face was wet Then I knew he was not lying
Why this matters.
Stockholm, Bowie – yeah. Well, here we are. Fears of imminent (ecological) catastrophe have been with us before (that does not automatically mean that the latest rash of fears is unwarranted).
What happened next?
Stockholm became the major example of “how you do international environment conferences” I think, and the template has been replayed and replayed.
On this day (ish) in 1971, “Ecology Action” was formed in Sydney. There had been a series of campaigns about specific patches of nature that were about to be bulldozed or mined etc, and well, people decided to get together to take action on Ecology.
________________________________________
Ecology body is formed
SYDNEY : Ecology Action has been formed recently here by people wanting to “take action to prevent irreversible destruction of life on earth.”
It is working closely with the Society for Social Responsibility in Science (SRS) and other conservationist and anti-pollution groups. Ecology Action is calling a meeting tonight (Wednesday June 16) at 7.30 pm, at the Stephen Roberts Theatre, Sydney University, to hear Dr. Stephen Boyden of the ANU speak and to discuss action proposed by Ecology Action. Ecology Action, with SRS and the National Trust is holding a meeting on June 28, at the Sydney Town Hall at 8 pm to discuss and protest the proposed Clutha development on NSW South Coast. Ecology Action’s address is Box K404, P.O., Haymarket, NSW, 2000.
Tribune, Wednesday 16 June 1971, page 12
Except, well, it was about a month earlier – see this from The Bulletin, near the other end of the political spectrum (Tribune was communist).
Why this matters.
We’ve been here before! Repeatedly. And see below…
What happened next?
Ecology Action lasted until about 1980. I’ve looked at the material in the National Library – newsletters and so on. Climate is not mentioned (and understandably so – still too abstract) but it seems there was the usual pattern of a few committed folks begging others to get involved… And then, well, it just fizzled out, I think. I don’t know for sure. That is NOT a criticism of those involved. I am sure they spent countless hours trying to slow down the apocalypse. And here we are.
On this day, 15 June 1994 the Canberra Times publishes a frankly embarrassing piece by IPA operative Andrew McIntyre in “No proof of global warming” (Canberra Times, June 15, p.17).
A rebuttal by Greenpeace was published on 20th and tireless climate scientist Neville Nicholls had two letters published on 26th and 29th.
But the time taken to rebut nonsense is time you don’t spend advancing a positive agenda. As the great thinker Toni Morrison said of racism, part of its power is in distraction and exhaustion…
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
Why this matters The denial and delay and stupidity rolls on and on and on.
What happened next?
McIntyre had another one – ahead of carbon tax decision, 30 November 1994
The Canberra Times has been much better than this, both before and since. Solid newspaper.
Below is a brilliant guest post, by Swedish historian Kristoffer Ekberg. If there are other folks out there who want to write guest posts – please do get in touch! drmarchudson@gmail.com
14 June 1979 and the messy inclusion of climate change in energy politics
Kristoffer Ekberg
On this date, 14 June 1979, the Swedish government gave the state-owned utility Statens Vattenfallsverk AB or short Vattenfall (meaning water fall) the task of undertaking a large scale investigation into ways of introducing more coal into the energy mix without harming the environment or the health of the population, Kol-Hälsa-Miljö (Coal-Health-Environment).
The aim was to increase the use of coal. The task might not seem strange given the fear of volatile oil prices during the 1970s and the fact that in the beginning of the 1970s up to 75% of Sweden’s energy consumption came from imported oil. Transitioning to a source of energy that was seen as more secure due to the possibility to source it from the proximity in northern Germany seems like a rational choice when only looking at this development.
But understanding this as a strategic move based on solely energy security shows only part of the picture and obscures the dubious enterprise, given the already-existing knowledge of climate change present among the political elites.
Famously hosting the first UN meeting on the human environment in 1972 the issue of climate change was already present among the leadership of the Social democratic party and Swedish political leadership. Bert Bolin (who would later become the first chairman of IPCC), had the year before also convened with the world’s leading climate scientists in Sweden.
In 1974 the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme publicly stated that climate change was one of the most pressing issues in the period up to the year 2000. In 1975 climate change was mentioned in the energy plan that would guide Sweden’s actions the coming years, clearly influenced by Bolin’s work. Climate change science was not unanimous but the Swedish leadership nonetheless engaged with the threat.
Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister (source: Wikipedia)
In these years, climate change became a useful argument for a Social Democratic leadership wanting to push for nuclear power. As opposition to nuclear grew larger and more forceful every year, partly resulting in the loss in the election of 1976 ending a 40 year period in power, nuclear became a problem but so was oil.
In governmental reports in 1978, climate change, which had initially been framed as a concern in relation to national energy production and consumption became associated solely with future threats on a global scale.
Even though the coal investigation was tasked with incorporating all available knowledge, the issue of climate change and CO2 was in most parts excluded, despite the previous reports from Bolin and others. Further, during the investigation the issue of CO2 came to the fore through trips to – for example – the Department on Energy, in the US but was deemed a problem not for Sweden but for high emitters like USA, Soviet Union and China.
When finished in 1983, the report mentioned climate change but these formulations were critiqued by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) arguing that the investigation had failed to account for the impact on CO2 emissions from introducing more coal.
Why this matters
The episode told here speaks to the messy ways in which climate change entered discussions and speaks to the different strategies that have been used to keep climate change of the table in periods when energy issues are highly debated. The construction of delaying arguments is not new in contemporary society but is something that has happened constantly since climate change entered on the political arena.
Kristoffer Ekberg is an historian working at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. His research focuses on the political history of climate change and the environment, corporate anti-environmentalism as well as social movements and utopian thought.
On June 13 June 2008 climate activists involved in the whole “camp for climate action” thing stopped a train heading to Drax power station in Yorkshire (the site of the first Camp for Climate Action, in August-September 2006).
They shovelled coal off it before the police arrived and arrested them all.
“Twenty nine people were convicted in July following a four-day jury trial at Leeds crown court. Today, at the same court, Judge James Spencer QC, ordered five, who had previous convictions, to do 60 hours unpaid work and three were ordered to pay £1,000 in costs and £500 compensation to Network Rail. The judge said the loss to the company had been almost £37,000. Twenty one members of the group were given conditional discharges for 12 months.”
And in January 2014… those convictions were quashed because the driver for the activists had been… undercover cop Mark Kennedy.
On this day in 1988 we were warned. Again.. With the Toronto conference on The Changing Atmosphere approaching, the WMO released a report, and scientists tried to alert the media.
This from the Associated Press-
“Things are going to change too fast,” scientist Michael Oppenheimer said as the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations Agency, released a report last week on the climate change that could be triggered by the “greenhouseeffect.”
The report painted a picture of a global civilization heating its atmosphere in a myriad of ways, from burning fossil fuel to destroying tropical forests.
Those actions could force the average temperature up by 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the next three decades, the report says. That might not sound like much, but the scientistssay it would be enough to wreak havoc.
Such a temperature increase, for example, would cause the sea level to rise by 10 inches, bringing seawater an average of 83 feet inland, according to Oppenheimer.
“The potential for economic, political and social destruction is extraordinary,” said biologist George Woodwell.
‘Greenhouse Effect’ Could Trigger Flooding, Crop Losses, Scientists Say The Associated Press June 13, 1988
Why this matters.
We knew. Never forget that we knew.
What happened next?
We did nowt, unless you count toothless treaties and wishful thinking as action. Personally, I don’t.
On this day, 12 June, 1992 (thirty years ago), the Australian Environment Minister ruled out a carbon tax. Again.
To quote a newspaper account of what was going on at the Rio Earth Summit –
“Economic instruments could also be used to reduce greenhouse emissions. Mrs Kelly said she had had discussions yesterday with Canada’s environment minister on the issue.
Australia’s options were limited, however, because the Government had declared its opposition to a carbon tax. Asked why the Government opposed a carbon tax, Mrs Kelly said it believed such a tax could introduce real social distortions because of Australia’s big distances.
“And it would obviously disadvantage rural communities, and those who could not afford to pay higher (fuel) prices.
The Australian community is not yet ready for a carbon tax. Even the European Community has passed a motion stating that it would not introduce a carbon tax until the US did so.
“It’s a question of who starts the ball rolling, Mrs Kelly said. “We won’t.””
O’Neill, G. 1992. Kelly Wants Action Over CO2 Emissions. The Age, 13 June, p.15.
One of the things you would have done – one of the first, but not the last or the biggest – if you gave a shit about future generations – was to put a tax on carbon dioxide. Not a huge one, and what you did with the money you got would have mattered (investing in renewables research, doing energy efficiency. Not rocket science).
We didn’t. And here we are.
What happened next?
Australia ratified the UNFCCC later that year, and created a meaningless “National Greenhouse Response Strategy” that was, um, none of those things. And then kept on as it had – building energy inefficient housing, building new coal-fired power stations etc etc.
On this day, 25 June, 1997, (25 years ago), the Clinton Administration was making life a little difficult for Prime Minister John Howard, who was sending emissaries around the world in an effort to find allies for his “Australia should get an opt out from this Kyoto thing” position.
According to Johnston and Stokes (1997)
“As late as June 1997, the US Ambassador to Australia, Ms Genta Hawkins Holmes, stated that the US would seek “binding, realistic and achievable” targets at Kyoto; she claimed that Australia should make greater use of renewable energy sources and improve its “relatively inefficient use of hydrocarbon energy.”
Johnston, W.R. and Stokes, G. 1997. Problems in Australian Foreign Policy: January- July 1997. Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol.43(3), pp.293-300.
See also – “Shared Values Drive US-Australia Alliance”. The Australian, 12 June 1997:
“Ambassador Holmes Gives Elementary Warning on Warming”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 1997.
Why this matters.
Australian federal governments have usually played a spoiling role in international negotiations (at the behest of powerful fossil fuel companies)
What happened next?
Australia, although diplomatically isolated, got a sweet sweet deal at Kyoto (via good luck and dummy spits).
And then refused to ratify. It was helped in this, enormously, by the selection of George W. Bush as President in 2000.
