Twenty years ago, on this day, August 7, 2003, Australian Prime Minister John Howard was up to his old climate-trashing tricks.
Howard meets with Sam Walsh and Brian Harwood and others in Sydney to scupper an emissions trading scheme that Costello etc were putting forward.. How do we know? It’s in the leaked minutes of the LETAG group…
What do I mean? The “Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group” (LETAG) that he’d set up. He called a meeting in May 2004 asking for oil company help in killing off the renewables he had been forced to accept as part of the energy mix…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Howard was under pressure to say yes to a national emissions trading scheme. One had been defeated in 2000, thanks to his henchman Nick Minchin, but this time the whole Cabinet – the Treasurer, the Foreign Affairs, the Environment guy etc were all united in agreeing that Australia should have a national emissions trading scheme. Howard didn’t want it, so he delayed the decision by a month. He then consulted with a couple of his mates, stiffened his spine, came back and afterwards and said “no.” And was able to do it, though the action was then pilloried and used by Labour in 2006-7, to show just how anti climate action Howard had been.
By the way, we know about this meeting, but not from its memoirs or anyone else’s. But because the information is contained in the minutes of a meeting of the Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group. The minutes were not usually released, but these were leaked. And they were leaked, because at a later meeting in 2004, Howard was pleading with big business to help him smash renewables. Yes, you read that right.
What I think we can learn from this
There is a jail cell with John Howard’s name on it at the Hague.
What happened next
Howard ruled until November 2007. And over his 11 years caused enormous damage to Australia, not just on climate policy (though obviously that’s a biggie).
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.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, August 6, 1990, a BBC Panorama documentary made it as far as the colonies….
1990 Political climate [videorecording] / reporter Steve Bradshaw ; producer Charles Furneaux Published Sydney : Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1990#
(In the UK it had been called “The Big Heat” and was broadcast on May 21.1990)
As the cold war ends, world leaders are already beginning to fight the climate war. They have been warned by scientists that global warming, caused by industrialisation and pollution, will cause a dramatic increase in storms, floods and droughts around the world. But there is bitter disagreement over who should pay the cost of preventing such disastrous climatic change. Should the burden fall on the west, with the risk of recession and a fall in living standards, or should Third World countries also foot the bill, even though it may mean hunger and poverty?
As part of One World week, Stephen Bradshaw reports from Britain, America and India on the politics of the climate, and reveals the latest scientific evidence on the future of our weather. Producer Charles Furneaux Editor Mark Thompson
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was an insatiable appetite, it seemed, for documentaries about climate change. And the ABC showing this BBC input is nothing particularly newsworthy. But this stuff was going on all the time.
What I think we can learn from this is that when an issue is hot, there is a provision of documentaries, think pieces, books, etc. Most end up in obscurity, deserved or otherwise. Or are cited without being read.
What happened next
The moment passed, it always does. It always has until now – now the issue isn’t going away because the consequences are piling up….
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.
A group of academics who have been working with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII) have called for diplomats attending the upcoming Bonn and Mexico climate talks and summit to take insurance into account.
A policy brief issued by the academic groups calls for insurance to play a key role in reducing climate change risks and influencing climate adaptation projects.
“Our research over the past years has shown that insurance solutions – with coordinated public-private action and some international support – has the potential to help vulnerable countries and people adapt to climate change”, stated Koko Warner (UNU-EHS), lead author of the policy brief ‘Solutions for Vulnerable Countries and People’. “Now it is time to move from knowledge to action. The need to link DRR and insurance and scaling them up is greater than ever to get the critical mass for adaptation”, Dr. Warner continued.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the Copenhagen gathering had been a complete failure. And so academics thought that if they could geinsurance companies involved, then it might shake loose some of the intransigence. I don’t know if they knew it, but Greenpeace had tried the same shtick 15 years earlier at the first COP, in Berlin, with very limited success.
What I think we can learn from this is that people always think that there is a button that can be pushed, a lever that can be pulled, to get us out of this fix. But it probably would require Cthulhu pushing and pulling with all of its tentacles repeatedly to make the machine shift.
What happened next
The insurance companies put out some glossy reports and there was some hand-wringing and the carbon dioxide kept accumulating,
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.
On this day, 35 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the pivotal “Changing Atmosphere” conference in Toronto, a meeting of the Australian government’s Federal Cabinet calls for a report on what can be done.
But it did lead to THIS report, in April of the following year
NB Thanks to Senator Rex Patrick for the tweet about this, and to Sally who can’t wander who alerted to me to it.
The context
The spooks at the Office of National Assessments had produced a report for Cabinet about the Greenhouse Effect, back in 1981, but it’s not clear it was ever discussed or seen by Fraser/Howard/Peackock etc. Through the 1980s, climate scientists got more certain – and more vocal – about the threat. Hawke’s science minister Barry Jones had LONG been aware of the climate problem. Jones had managed to get funding for a “Commission for the Future” (something New Zealand had had already, and the Swedes had done too in the early 1970s).
“The Commission’s chair, Phillip Adams, recalls that problems such as nuclear war, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, were all proposed. Finally, though:
…the last bloke to talk was right at the far end of the table. Very quiet gentleman… He said, ‘You’re all wrong – it’s the dial in my laboratory, and the laboratories of my colleagues around the world.’ He said, ‘Every day, we see the needle going up, because of what we call the greenhouse effect.‘
The first big project that the Commission for the Future did – in combination with the CSIRO – was “The Greenhouse Project”, with Australian scientists Graeme Pearman and Barrie Pittock neck deep.
The Greenhouse Project had launched in September 1987. There was a big scientific conference a couple of months later. The Toronto conference (which Pearman attended) was in June, by which time preparations were already well underway for a series of public meetings, linked by satellite, to happen in the capital cities of every state, in November 1988 (Greenhouse 88).
What we can learn
We knew enough to act. The pushback from industry and denialists began in 1989, and was successful in scuppering what might have been a half-decent response. And here we are.
What happened next
A detailed report was tabled to Cabinet the following April. It makes frankly horrifying reading. In May 1989 the Federal Environment Minister tried to get the Cabinet to agree to a target of a 20% reduction in emissions by 2005. He was blocked by Paul Keating, Treasurer.
Eventually, just before the Second World Climate Conference, the Australian Cabinet DID accept a version of the “Toronto Target” but with so many caveats as to make it pointless. And Keating, still in Cabinet, extracted an agreement that the Productivity Commission would produce a report.
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.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, August 3, 1988, an Exxon PR flak is drafting bullshit about “THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT”, draft written by Joseph M. Carlson, an Exxon Public Affairs Managers.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was everyone had started to bang on about climate change. And so Exxon needed to go public. But going public and saying, “yeah, we’ve known about this for 10 years and we decided a while back that we were going to be obstructive” would not be particularly helpful. So instead, they tried to baffle people with bullshit and passive language and all the rest of it.
What I think we can learn from this
What we learn is that this is just how corporates behave unless forced to do otherwise.
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.
On this day, 53 years ago, the Los Angeles Times ran a front page story “Scientists fear climate change by SST pollution.”
In August of 1970, before the official publication of SCEP, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times – both outspoken critics of the SST- ran articles on the report, playing up the recommendation that the project be delayed. The story made the front page of both papers, with the LA Times declaring “Scientists Fear Climate Change by SST Pollution” and citing concerns about C02 and other gases trapped in the stratosphere. The LA Times quoted Kellogg specifically: “When you change something on a global basis,” Kellogg told the press, “you had better watch out.”
(Howe, 2014:53)
LA Times 2 August 1970
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The Context
That plans for a large fleet of supersonic passenger jets had gotten lots of environmental scientists wondering about the impact on the stratosphere, and ozone. Meanwhile, the Nixon administration had been pushing “the environment” as a topic for international discussion (something the Swedes had started), to change the topic from the attack on the people of Vietnam. The LA Times folks will also have known that the Council on Environmental Quality was about to release its first report, and that there was a chapter on … climate change in there, written by Gordon MacDonald.
What we can learn
We knew. But then, if you’ve been following this site, you knew we knew.
What happened next
Nixon wangled a moratorium on SSTs, hoping to regroup, but Congress got in and turned it into a ban. Fun fact – this failure was one of the key moments in the development of the planet-killing think tank “The Heritage Foundation”, set up to make sure Congress got lobbied effectively by business interests. (Blah blah Edward Feulner).
Kellogg organised a three week symposium on “Man’s Impact on Climate” the following year.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 383ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Putin wanted to throw his weight around and planting the flag on the Arctic seabed was a good “strongman” gimmick. The Arctic was, as long predicted, warming quickly, and literally changing the map of the world. Resources, wars, land-grabs, the usual stuff…
What I think we can learn from this is that the Westphalian system (created at the end of the 30 years war) is a failure, We have known that the tensions about borders and the “Law of the Sea”/”Law of the atmosphere” have been growing and growing. We’d seen it with acid rain then with ozone than with climate.
What happened next
The Arctic kept melting. People kept exploring for oil. Greenpeace got arrested. And Putin? Putin kept being a quality human being.
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.
Given the current battle over “Net Zero” and the Conservative Party, I thought this might be illuminating.
So, on 18 November 1979 the Sunday Times reported that
“leaked Cabinet papers record the Government’s efforts to ‘reduce oversensitivity to environmental consideration'(The Sunday Times, 18 November 1979). ” (Lowe and Morrison, 1984: 86)
I don’t have digital access to The Sunday Times, sadly. But I do have access to the Times. And on October 6 1984, (on page 8, since you ask), there’s an article by one Tony Paterson (then the parliamentary liaison officer for the Bow Group) titled “Why the true blues must go green.” We learn
Characteristic of this outlook was the recommendation of the Government within weeks of the 1979 election triumph by Sir John Hoskyns, then head of Mrs Thatcher’s Downing Street Policy Unit, to reduce its “oversensitivity to environmental considerations” in planning decisions. Because it heeded this and similar advice, millions of conservationists have come to regard the Conservative Party, environmentally, as no more than a watchdog which barks when kicked – even though, philosophically, it can claim to be the natural party of conservation.
Who was John Hoskyns? Interesting chap. Came out of the military, set up businesses. According to the font-of-all-knowledge Wikipedia
“Without any political experience, Hoskyns dedicated most of the year 1977 to analysing what was wrong with Britain. This work formed a large part of the “Stepping Stones Report”, published together with Norman S. Strauss, a business executive from Unilever, in November 1977, created for the Conservative Party, then in opposition. The report included a diagram showing how the problems it identified were interlinked.”
So, another of those sort of “Mandate for Leadership” efforts (the Heritage Foundation in the US were presumably taking note?). It didn’t go so well for Hoskyns –
In March 1982 Hoskyns resigned from the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), frustrated by the slow pace of change,[7] including the refusal to appoint certain people to the CPRS, on the grounds that it was a non-political body.
Oh, and Hoskyns? He was someone Dominic Cummings (remember him?) spoke of as an example of how to shake things up. See this rather interesting 2020 column by Andy Beckett.
What do we learn?
I think we learn four things, in decreasing order of interest to other people.
This current battle in “defence of Net Zero” is only the latest skirmish (albeit a mildly consequential one ) in the long long battle between – well, let’s not mince our words – economic growth and a habitable planet. My money is on growth, all the way up to us not having a habitable planet no more (sooner than you might think, I think).
Egregious decision-making like this tends to get leaked by outraged civil servants (or even politicians) – see also the May 2004 meeting of the “Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group” called by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in which he asked for fossil fuel companies for help in crushing the renewable energy scheme that he had been forced to introduce. Somebody, disgusted, leaked those minutes and they appeared in October 2004.
The July 1979 kicking around of the “whybother even publishing this climate report?” discussion between (at least) Angus Maude and Keith Joseph (another Thatcher enabler) should be seen in that context.
Forty three years ago, on this day, August 1, 1980, The Wall Street Journal ran a seriously good report on the problem of climate change. It included professors (inc David Rose) and also the view from trade bodies like the National Coal Association. You will be shocked, shocked to learn that they were not sold on the idea that their product was gonna create global chaos… And here we are…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures.
The context was that more and more scientists were coming out and saying carbon dioxide was going to be a serious factor in climate change. There had been the NAS report in 1977, but more recently, the First World Climate Conference, the Charney report and the G7 meeting in Tokyo, and the Global 2000 report.
So it’s unsurprising that the business press, (the Wall Street Journal fancies itself as the equivalent of the Financial Times but it’s not even close, would want to cover the issue). What’s a little surprising is just how good the article was. There’s a lovely dismissive quote from the coal lobby.
What I think we can learn from this is (1) as ever, if you really want to understand what’s going on in the world, quality business press is the way forward and (2) that the National coal Association was all over the issue. Of course they were.
What happened next
Three months later, Jimmy Carter lost the presidency and America and the world lost the momentum though it continued to some extent in Europe.
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.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appears to be wobbling on the “Net Zero” that a previous Conservative Prime Minister but three – that’s Theresa May, in case you’d lost count – got through parliament with barely a cough of disapproval back in 2019. Sunak is mumbling about “proportionate and pragmatic response”, at the same time that British holidaymakers are having to be flown back from Rhodes and Corfu, and while so many climate records are tumbling that it is hard to keep up. The Conservative Environment Network and others are trying to stiffen his spine, but Sunak appears minded to appease those on the ‘right’ who are opposed to anything green. This is both surprising but also, if you take a global and historical perspective, less so.
The UK story
The modern environment movement can roughly be dated to 1969 (1). There had been oil spills (the Torrey Canyon) and books (Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb) but the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, where rich people lived, was the spill that broke the camel’s back. In September 1969 British Wilson Harold Wilson gave the first ever speech to a party congress that mentioned “the environment”
“First, our environment. There is a two-fold task: to remove the scars of 19th century capitalism – the derelict mills, the spoil heaps, the back-to-back houses that still disfigure so large a part of our land. At the same time we have to make sure that the second industrial revolution through which we are now passing does not bequeath a similar legacy to future generations. We must deal with the problems of pollution – of the air, of the sea, of our rivers and beaches. We must also deal with the uniquely 20th century problems of noise and congestion which will increasingly disturb, unless checked, our urban life.
Wilson then appointed one of his ministers – Tony Crosland – as a kind of Environment supremo, with a central scientific unit that was to roam across the whole of government, and set up a standing “Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution” (abolished by David Cameron in 2010). The first ever Environment White Paper was released the following May, and made a glancing reference to a possible problem with carbon dioxide buildup.
Visiting the US early the following year, Wilson proposed a new special relationship, based on environmental protection. Far from decrying this, Conservative leader Edward Heath accused Wilson of being too slow. When Heath became Prime Minister he created a huge Department of the Environment, that had some teeth to it. While “the environment” faded from the headlines thanks to the first Oil Shock, high inflation (sound familiar?) and other issues, neither Tories nor Labour backtracked. In 1979, new Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher even mentioned the greenhouse effect while in Tokyo for a G7 meeting.
She told a BBC journalist “we should also be worried about the effect of constantly burning more coal and oil because that can create a band of carbon dioxide round the world, which could itself have very damaging ecological effects.”
However, Thatcher took an obstructive line on acid rain, something the Swedes were especially exercised about, since sulphur from British coal stations was altering their lakes and rivers. It was only in 1988, after persistent lobbying from scientists like John Houghton and diplomats like Crispin Tickell that the lady was for turning – and in spectacular fashion. Her September 1988 speech to the Royal Society about the ‘experiment’ humanity was conducting in tipping so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, is regarded as the starting point for modern climate politics. In a reversal of 20 years previously, it was now Labour (including a young Tony Blair) calling for more action.
Thanks to switching from coal to gas, and moving industry offshore, the UK could for a long-time boast of reducing its emissions and speak nobly of sustainable development. In 1997, Tony Blair said the UK would exceed its Kyoto target, meeting few grumbles from the Tories. In the late 2000s there was a fierce “competitive consensus” around passing a climate change act. David Cameron, trying to repair the Conservative image, had taken a trip to the Arctic and was now saying “can we have the bill please.” Very very few Conservative MPs voted against an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050, and 5 year carbon budgets. Once in power, Cameron supported fracking, nuclear and opposed onshore wind and generally ‘cut the green crap’, [which has proved costly] but did not attack the Climate Change Act.
After the Paris Agreement in 2015, which the UK signed, it became clear that 80% would not be enough of a target to have the UK meet its obligations to do its part to keep warming under 2 degrees, and pressure built (including from prominent Conservative backbenchers) for a “Net Zero” by 2050 target. This was one of Theresa May’s last acts, and was enthusiastically endorsed by Labour, Boris Johnson and the like.
So what’s going wrong, and what does it mean?
Politicians tend to like targets that are far distant, round numbers like 2050. They get the glow, without the pain of upsetting either vested interests or demanding ordinary people change what they drive, what they eat, where they go. Bipartisanship is easy under those circumstances.
What we are seeing now, I believe, is a collision between what the promises were and what the immediate action has to be. Boris Johnson for a while, was able to defy gravity, but the failure of any actual spending on “Levelling Up” (recently Michael Gove returned a lot of money unspent) is a smaller version of what we are seeing here.
And, crucially, this is not unique to the United Kingdom. There have been periods of bi-partisan consensus around environmental issues in Australia (from the late 1960s to the early 1990s) and the United States. But once in power, Conservative governments have tended to prioritise “free markets” over what they label as irksome or socialistic environmental regulation. The main motor of climate denial, and framing green concerns as like a “watermelon” (Green on the outside, red on the inside) has been, historically, the United States.
One way of looking at what is happening in the Conservative Party now is that the same imported “culture war” tropes that gave us an un-evidenced “voter registration” panic and other concerns is now turning to climate policy. This is what is behind the recent Just Stop Oil action at Policy Exchange, which has received a lot of money from anonymous American sources.
The recent Uxbridge bye-election result has likely whetted the appetite of right-wing Tory strategists, seeing this as a way of “wedging” Labour (certainly Grant Shapps sees it that way) and either winning the next election by weaponising climate policy, or at the very least reducing the losses to “manageable proportions.”
Meanwhile, the emissions climb, the ice melts and the waters warm, and everyone will be holding their breath for every food harvest from here onwards.
Footnotes
I haven’t read it yet, but this new book ooks fascinating – All We Want is the Earth: Land, Labour and Movements Beyond Environmentalism By Patrick Bresnihan and Naomi Millner. The blurb says “traces a counter-history of modern environmentalism from the 1960s to the present day. It focuses on claims concerning land, labour and social reproduction arising at important moments in the history of environmentalism made by feminist, anti-colonial, Indigenous, workers’ and agrarian movements. Many of these movements did not consider themselves ‘environmental,’ and yet they offer vital ways forward in the face of escalating ecological damage and social injustice.”
Further reading
Barnett. A. 2023. Populists are feeding the climate to culture wars. The Lead, July 22.
