Thirty years ago, on this day, November 10th, 1994,
Victorians should not rely on the state’s new competitive electricity companies to meet environmental aims, a senior power industry official has warned.
In a paper to be delivered in Sydney today, Dr Harry Schaap says the competitive system that Victoria and Australia are entering will no longer be able to devote so many resources to environmental challenges.
Dr Schaap is the manager of environmental affairs for Generation Victoria, owner of the state’s power stations, and one of two electricity industry representatives on the Council of Australian Governments’ National Greenhouse Advisory Panel. He will speak today at the annual conference of the Electricity Supply Association of Australia.
His comments may focus renewed attention on the possible environmental costs of Victoria’s electricity reforms and coming privatisation.
1994 Walker, D. 1994. Environment May Suffer In New Power Climate – Expert. The Age, 10 November, p.5.
[Faulkner too – see below]
The Federal Minister for the Environment, John Faulkner, has warned the electricity industry that its strides towards greater competitiveness may be working against a better environment, with cheaper prices encouraging consumers to use and waste more energy.
He also raised the threat of environmental levies — which could include a carbon tax — as a method of ensuring the industry cleans up its act.
Senator Faulkner’s speech to the Electricity Supply Association of Australia conference in Sydney on Thursday [10th November] came on the same day as a court challenge by Greenpeace over the construction of a new power station in the Hunter Valley was rejected.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Australia had ratified the UNFCCC treaty, which was to have its first meeting in Berlin in March of the following year (1995). Federal Environment minister John Faulkner was hoping he could go and boast about a carbon tax. Meanwhile, the electricity system was being privatised, and environmental regulations and goals were being stripped out of the privatisation plans. Of course.
What I think we can learn from this Today’s failures are consequences of failures thirty years previous. Cheerful thought, eh?
What happened next We failed. The carbon tax failed. The electricity system was privatised and emissions from it stayed sky high. Policy did not drive a rapid decarbonisation, which is what was required.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2024 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was about to be a vote on Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. And alongside that, there was also peak hype for Carbon Capture and Storage, which was being attacked by clued-up elements of the environment movement as an expensive distraction and boondoggle that wasn’t going to fix climate change. It was being attacked by the denialists as an expensive boondoggle that was not going to fix a non-existent problem. What’s a little bit interesting here is that a relatively senior Liberal, was willing to come out and say the same. Perhaps dog whistling to the denialists perhaps simply because it was the truth, that CCS is a pipe dream.
What we learn is that there’s lots of people criticising CCS, and CCS’s answer would have been to deliver the goods. But the technology is incredibly expensive. There’s not really a market for it. And it hasn’t worked.
What happened next? Well, the CPRS fell over and then so did CCS. The Liberals got back into power in 2013 and abolished the carbon price. And the rest is history…
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-two years ago, on this day, November 9th, 1992,
Australian entertainment personalities joined forces last night (Monday) [9th] for the launch of Ark Australia, a local chapter of the English group launched in 1988- an international non-political, non-lobbying, positive action environmental organisation.
Anon, 1992. Celebrities join forces for environment . Greenweek, November 10, p.5.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that this was the Australian version of the Ark. There had been a short-lived group in the United Kingdom called Ark from November of ‘88 to July really, of ‘89. And here was the same kind of business model; a bunch of celebrities smiling and gurning and telling people about how they can turn off the tap or pull the curtain.
What we learn is that, you know, these ideas or these tactics, techniques go around the world for all the good that they do.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘soThe what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Twenty-seven years ago, on this day, November 7th, 1997,
Climate change requires federal leadership and action, as acknowledged in the [NOVEMBER] 1997 Heads of Agreement on Commonwealth and State Roles and Responsibilities for the Environment, which states:
The Commonwealth has a responsibility and an interest in relation to meeting the obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in co-operation with the States, through specific programmes and the developments and implementation of national strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and to protect and enhance greenhouse sinks.
(Ruddock, 2007: 183) 2.30 The COAG meeting of 7 November 1997 resulted in an in-principle endorsement of the Agreement on Commonwealth/State Roles and Responsibilities for the Environment from all Heads of Government and the President of the Australian Local Government Association.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia’s federal government had been doing all that it could to resist having to make any consequential commitment at the impending COP3 negotiations in Kyoto. It had been spitting the dummy for a year sending diplomats around the world to demand that Australia get special treatment. Not all state governments were on board with this. So for example, Bob Carr was much keener on climate action. But of course, state governments have relatively limited power….
What we learn is that not everyone is on the same page. That especially in a federal system, there are public differences of opinions, and especially private ones.
What happened next? John Howard was successful, in that Australia got not only a108% “reduction” target, but also managed to ram through a clause about land clearing that turned that into a de facto but not de jure 130% “reduction” target. Just naked greed and duplicity, and fuck these people.
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.
Twenty-three years ago, on this day, November 6th, 2001 days before the election,
CANBERRA, Nov 6 AAP – The government today chose an industrial heartland to warn that Labor’s promise to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change would cost jobs and harm the economy.
Prime Minister John Howard toured the industry-rich Hunter Valley area north of Sydney to sell his message that ratifying the agreement would cost jobs, pump up petrol and power prices and hurt industry.
The comments came on the eve of a high-level meeting in Morocco tomorrow night when officials from around the globe will debate the finer points of ratifying the protocol….
Modelling quoted widely by the coalition was based on inaccurate assumptions that unrealistically inflated the costs of meeting Australia’s targets, opposition environment spokesman Nick Bolkus said.
2001 McSweeny, L., Polglaze, K. and Hamilton, F. 2001. Fed – Govt warns of job losses under ALP Kyoto plan. Australian Associated Press, 7 November.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Howard was using the old line about jobs to defend his mates in the fossil fuel sector, even though as a whole mining did not provide that many jobs primarily or secondarily, especially when it comes to open cast.
What we learn is that it’s all Jobsngrowth, Jobsngrowth. The reliable standbys when talking to the electorate, just as technology is the standby when talking to society more generally.
What happened next, Howard had another six years of mayhem and the Hunter is still coal central despite what it’s doing to all the other sectors, whether it’s tourism or agriculture, or what, or horse-racing.
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.
Twenty-five years ago, on this day, November 4th, 1999,
a report by The Australia Institute on Australians having highest per capita emissions is front page news for the Melbourne.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Australia was built as a settler colony, and was burning enormous quantities of shitty coal, especially in Victoria, where they had basically limitless brown coal, which is filthy on so many levels.
And it’s hardly a surprise that Australia had the highest per capita emissions given the shittiness of their houses, the sources of their energy. Btw transport is not really that big a factor, because, despite the myth, most Australians don’t cover long distances. They are mostly huddled in various cities on the coast. There’s the myths that we like to tell ourselves and then there’s the reality.
What we learn is that you can tell Australians that they’re causing planetary mayhem as much as you like. It won’t change anything.
What happened next, Australia’s per capita emissions continued to be berserk and are down unto this day.
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 years ago, on this day, November 2nd, 1994,
Greenpeace trying to attack market perceptions of energy companies
GREENPEACE has launched a strong campaign to show that market perceptions of energy companies are overblown and do not take into account the potential impact of climate change.
The environmental organisation said yesterday that climate change presented major long term risks to the carbon fuel industry which were not adequately discounted in financial analysis.
Quoting a report released in London, Greenpeace said global warming was a long term risk to investors in the carbon fuel industry.
Wilson, N. (1994) CARBON PAPER’S CLIMATE RISK WARNINGThe Australian Financial Review 3rd November [this while their Redbank case was still pending – decision came down a week later]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Greenpeace had been banging on about the Climate Time Bomb [LINK] . The first UNFCCC Conference of the Parties was due to take place in another four months in Berlin. And Greenpeace was trying to rally the “responsible” and responsive within the capitalist sector to show up in every sense, especially the reinsurance industry. This is an entirely sensible tactic. I think it didn’t work, but that’s hardly Greenpeace’s fault.
What we learn is that capitalism is by no means a monolith. Intrasectoral and intersectoral battles are always going on. Groups like Greenpeace will try and enlist and mobilise, which you can call cowardly or you can call sensible – it depends how you’re feeling, I guess. None of it worked, many of us are gonna die messily and soon.
What happened next? COP1 happened. Insurance and reinsurance groups turned up for day one and then went home. The oil executives stuck around. Guess who won. And you can read more about this in Jeremy Leggett’s the Carbon War.
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.
Seventeen years ago, on this day, October 31st, 2006, Australian Prime Minister John Howard dismisses the report on “The Economics of Climate Change” by former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern as “pure speculation”
,
Fraser, A. 2006. Greenhouse Report Pure Speculation, Says Howard. Canberra Times 1 November
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia had just finally really woken up to climate change in September 2006. John Howard was beset on all sides and trying to fight back. At this point, he was probably still grumpy and resisting the idea of having to set up the Shergold Group Report. And so he took aim at the recently published Stern Review and called it pure speculation.
What we learn is that a) people who are supposed to be responsible stewards of the future can be utter fools and that b) the species doesn’t know how to do concern about its own future. If it did, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Nothing in our cultural evolution in the West, at least the last 300 or 500 years or so has prepared us. And here we are.
What happened next? Although Howard tried to do a pivot to save his skin it didn’t really convince anyone, probably not even himself. He got trolled by a senior ABC journalist on February 7. And he continued to sneer at Stern when Stern paid a flying visit in the first half of 2007. And of course, eventually, after leaving office, John Howard gave a talk to the Global Warming Policy Foundation or whatever it’s called that “one religion was enough.”
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, October 24th, 1991 AMEEF (Australian Minerals and Energy Environment Foundation) was launched in Canberra by Martin W. Holdgate, then Director General of the IUCN,
(The Mining Review, Dec 1991 – p8-10.)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Australian mining industry had come in for a lot of flak, for environmental criminality, degradation, or whatever you want to call it. And this included the climate issue.
They pushed back, calling their critics all the names under the sun, but they also needed some sort of positive front foot to put forward. And here we have the Australian Minerals and Energy Environment Foundation, which is one of those outfits that you can set up to dish out awards to yourself, and press releases and the occasional book. And this is a soothing lullaby to middle class people who want to believe that everything’s okay. Alongside this, there’s also been AMIC’s “Mining: it’s absolutely essential” campaign. They had done adverts and all the rest of it trying to TV adverts, newspaper adverts, etc.
What I think we can learn from this is that there are these basically hollow organisations made up of well-meaning, but probably naive or desperate scientists and bureaucrats. They do some good work, you could say, at the margins. They’re trying to change the system from within. It’s maybe better than sitting on your ass and complaining or making websites I don’t know. But if social movements had to tackle the Juggernaut, they need to see this as another tactic. But they won’t, because we’re not smart enough to solve the problems that we are causing with our smarts without cutting.
What happened next I think it’s defunct? Website looks, ah, interesting. https://ameef.com.au/
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.
The question is this. Who is the bigger climate criminal – John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia 1996-2007, or Anthony Albanese, same gig from 2022 to ??. It’s not as straightforward as you think.
My answer is below. It’s not clear cut, and I am keen to hear your arguments. In the tweets/replies/comments, etc. Suggested hashtag #HowardOrAlbo
For those to young to remember, and those who have done their best to repress the horror: John Howard did enormous damage to Australia, across a wide range of issues. For these purposes, I’ll stick to climate.
A one paragraph history lesson.
After the shock of the Liberals going to the 1990 Federal election with a stronger emissions reduction target than the ALP, the opponents of meaningful Australian climate action had successfully mobilised in the early 1990s. They prevented any ambitious contribution by Australia to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. They gutted the Ecologically Sustainable Development process initiated by Bob Hawke, Labor Prime Minister from 1983-1991. They stopped any effective action going into the National Greenhouse Response Strategy (December 1992). In all this they were helped by Labor’s Paul Keating, who rolled Hawke in late 1991. In 1994-5 the opponents of climate action, co-ordinated by the Business Council of Australia and what we now know as the Minerals Council of Australia. They laid the groundwork for Australia to plead for “special treatment” internationally, using farcical economic modelling.
Then John Howard came and dialled it all up not to eleven, but to twelve. He doubled down on the economic modelling, which was all horseshit, literally funded by the oil coal and gas companies. He made promises about renewables in order to buy off the worried Liberals, promises he then did everything to avoid keeping. He arm-twisted and bullshitted his way to an incredibly generous deal at Kyoto (and then pulled out, once his mate George W. Bush had led the way). He did everything he could to slow renewables, including organising a meeting of fossil fuel company CEOs to demand their help (I am not making this up). He twice killed off an Emissions Trading Scheme, the second time – in 2003 – against his united cabinet. On and on and on I could go.
Anthony Albanese is worse.
If we can only send one Prime Minister to the International Court of Justice at the Hague it should be loveable raised-in-social-housing Albo.
Here’s my reasoning.
John Howard has two (weak-ish to laughable) arguments in, ah, “mitigation.”
First – he was born in 1939. He was raised to believe that there were no limits to the Earth’s bounty, and that if there WERE limits, well, technology would fix them (1) . He was 30 when the whole eco-doom thing started, and could say “this is a yoof fad”, even while his party, the Liberal Party, created a Minister for the Environment for the first time. I wrote about this in an academic article called “Wind beneath their contempt: Why Australian policymakers oppose solar and wind energy”(Hudson, 2017). There’s a Conversation article about it here.
Second – in the 1990s, even after the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1995-6 it was possible – if you really really engaged in a lot of motivated reasoning – to believe that climate change was mostly a greenie scare designed to create a dreaded Superstate of regulation. The commies had lost the Cold War and were starting a war about Heat to have another go.
It was nonsense, of course it was, but we all believe nonsensical things, occasionally. And so what if some temperature records were falling? Australia is a land of extremes… Dorothea McKellar yadda yadda yadda. Yes, there’s a Millennium Drought (pray for rain, said Howard, in April 2007), but Australia has always had droughts. Howard could grasp some flimsy bullshit climate “doubt.” It had no substance, but it was there.
Finally, in his defence, too at least Howard never pretended to give a rat’s arse. At least he had enough respect to be open in his contempt for the black armbands, the green armbands etc.
Albo has none of that.
Albo was born in 1963. He was 9 when The Limits to Growth came out. Questions of environmental damage and danger were just there for him growing up. He was 20 when the Franklin Dam was saved by his beloved Labor Party. He was 25 when Bob Hawke came over all “green,” when Australia was freaking out about the hole in the Ozone and the Greenhouse Effect.
Albo? How many impossible bushfires? How many killer heatwaves and temperature records smashed? How many incinerated animals? A billion? Two? Are you waiting till the number gets to 5 billion, Albo?
What are you planning as your excuse, in ten years, Albo? I’d really like to know. Oh and, btw, that sound you hear? It’s your old boss, Tom Uren, spinning in his grave.
Whatever your excuse is, it won’t fool anyone. Except maybe you? And maybe in the Alboverse that’s all that matters. Top “leadership”, mate.
Meanwhile, Albo has told us how much he cares. Albo has been making a song and dance about how much he cares for two decades.
The Senate Inquiry into the Energy White Paper has concluded the Energy White Paper will delay critical action on climate change for another twenty years [All Our Yesterdays post here]
And the ALP is forever telling the Greens they are irresponsible (2). Because Labor has suuuuch a good record of following through.
On that subject, a quick digression about one of Albo’s enablers.
Health Minister Mark “The Climate Wars” Butler, sat there like a Trappist monk, watching Albo shit over the portfolio that was his “passion”. Mate your silence is heard. People remember your book, all the lovely words. People hear it and draw conclusions about the quantity and the quality of your sincerity and your courage. You think anyone will be impressed when you mumble something about Caucus rules and Party loyalty? How about some loyalty to the community you claim to represent? The city you are supposed to speak for? How about, I don’t know, even some species loyalty? Mene mene tekel upharsin, eh?
So Howard IS a climate criminal. He should be sitting in the dock by the North Sea. But Albo belongs alongside him, and I think in front of him. Albo has no excuses. Not the excuse of outlook, not knowledge. Albo is the guy in the Kudelka cartoon from last weekend.
Basically, this. As per Richard Denniss’s quotetweet
Australia has relied on rorting rules rather than cutting carbon emissions for decades…
Carbon offsets, carbon capture & storage, clean coal…& now nuclear…any magical future solution can be used to justify subsidising fossil fuel expansion in the present
Yep. This is bipartisan. But the chickens are coming home to roost (or are they among the incinerated billions of animals?) And Australia’s “ambition” is utterly inadequate, as per Bill Hare’s May 2024 Conversation article and Carbon ActionTracker work.
[Btw, the disclaimer at the bottom, in reference to Royce Kurmelovs, applies equally to Dennis and Hare.]
But before you go out and save the world, inquiring minds would like to know – in your opinion – Albo or John Howard? Who is the bigger climate criminal?
Further reading
I have focussed on two “personalities.” There is always the danger of a morality tale, ignoring the awesome power of the networks of determined, clever and remorseless individuals and groups that have played and won the game called “capture the state.” The reading below (especially the Royce Kurmelovs’ book, to be spoken of in the same breath as Guy Pearse’s work) should help with that.
Even Tony Abbott , born 1957, kinda sorta has that excuse (though he and his best mate Malcolm Turnbull are the same age)
I am not now, and never have been a member of the Green Party of anywhere. Or any political party. And as for the Greens, I am not always a fan of how they do bread and butter politics. Here and here. And here, I guess.
DISCLAIMER
I helped Royce with bits of research and we continue to collaborate. For clarity, he had no foreknowledge of this article, nothing to do with it. Same goes for two other ppl whose work I drew on – Richard Dennis’s and Bill Hare. Didn’t consult them in this, no idea if they will applaud or be horrified. My views alone.
