Category: Australia

Categories
Australia Business Responses Carbon Pricing

June 3, 1996 – Business Council of Australia versus even the idea of a carbon tax

On this day June 3, 1996, 29 years ago, the peak business body in the settler colony known as Australia wanted to nail yet another nail in the coffin of the carbon tax proposal that had been defeated in February 1995.

THE Business Council of Australia has asked the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics to update research conducted last year on the regional impact…

Strickland, K. 1996  Call for revision of carbon tax’s impact. The Australian, June 3, p.031

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 363ppm.  As of 2025, 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 for this was that business was busy winning all the big policy battles, but still feared that climate action might impact their profits. Internationally, the Berlin COP had ended with a “Berlin Mandate” meaning rich nations (including Australia) were going to be expected to present plans for carbon dioxide reductions by the third COP.

The specific context was the new Liberal National Party government of John Howard was even more business-friendly and climate-action-blocking than that of the ALP’s Paul Keating. But you never know, issues can come back – especially with COP2 about to take place in Geneva – and the Business Council is here just laying down some suppressing fire.

What I think we can learn is this: 

As human beings – business interests do not care about the actual future.

As “active citizens – business interests know how to keep governments on a leash, and they rarely get sloppy/complacent.

Academics might want to ponder – their role as handmaidens to this system.

What happened next: Howard came out swinging hard against both international and national commitments. He did not get punished by the Great Australian Electorate for these acts of bastardy until 2007.

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

Stuff on ABARE

Stuff on John Howard

(use the search function!)

References

 (as academic as possible, with DOIs if they exist.) hyperlinks.

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.

If you want to get involved, let me know.

If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).

Also on this day: 

June 3, 1970 – US Senator suggests World Ecology Unit – All Our Yesterdays

June 3, 1989 – Liberal Party to outflank Labor on #climate?!

June 3, 1994 – Greenpeace warns of climate time bomb

June 3, 2010 – Merchants of Doubt published

Categories
Activism Australia Interviews

Parents for Climate: What they do, what they are looking for.

Parents for Climate, an Australian group, kindly answered some questions!

1. What is the “origin story” of Parents for Climate – when did you begin, why?
Parents for Climate began in 2019, sparked by a simple but powerful idea: parents are a force like no other when it comes to protecting the future. A group of six rural and regional mums got together online—frustrated by government inaction and alarmed by worsening climate impacts—to create a home for parent-led climate action. Our tiny organisation wants to empower everyday families to take meaningful steps, speak up, and shift the story about who climate action is for.

2. (How) has the work of Parents for Climate shifted since it began – for what reasons?
We’ve grown from a grassroots network into a national movement that’s deeply strategic. At first, we were a small mostly-online community focused on awareness raising and community-building—now, we’re focused on influencing decision-makers and policy, supporting local leadership, and amplifying the voices of parents in public debate. That shift reflects the urgency of the climate crisis, the growing political relevance of parents, and what we’ve learned about where we can make the most impact.

3. What are the things you’ve done that you’re proudest of?

We’re proud to have helped shape public policy—like federal investments in clean energy storage and better school infrastructure. We’ve mobilized thousands of parents in electorates across the country, built powerful coalitions, and held Australia’s biggest energy companies to account for greenwashing. But just as importantly, we’ve helped countless parents move from climate anxiety to climate agency—finding purpose, connection, and hope together.

4. What, besides more money and time, is the main constraint on you being able to do more things (skills gaps, access to other resources etc) and what help are you looking for?

Like many grassroots groups, we’re stretched. We could do more with support in digital campaigning, media and design, and easy to use tools that help us scale. We’d also love more support building bridges into multicultural communities and regional networks. We’re looking for people who want to offer skills, networks, or mentoring—or who can help unlock funding or strategic partnerships.

5. What resources need to be available to concerned parents for when they talk to their kids – of different ages – about what the future holds?
Parents need age-appropriate, emotionally intelligent tools that are honest but hopeful. That might be a storybook about nature and courage for young kids, a school project toolkit for tweens, or conversation guides for teens that acknowledge fear but focus on action. Most of all, parents need to feel they’re not alone—and that there’s a community of people out there who are acting for their kids too.

6. Anything else you want to say – shout outs about upcoming events, other groups etc.
We’ve just wrapped our biggest ever campaign, Vote Like a Parent. We just forced energy giant EnergyAustralia to admit to the truth behind its marketing claims  through legal action. And we’re gearing up for new work focused on clean energy and protecting kids from the impacts of extreme heat and air pollution. A huge shout out to the parent volunteers around the country making this movement what it is. If you’re reading this and want to be part of it—come join us at parentsforclimate.org!

Categories
Australia

June 2, 1977 – Australian scientists SCOPE the climate problem

On this day June 2nd 1977, 48 years ago, Australian Scientist Graeme Pearman gathered fellow scientists to tell them what had been going on.

2-3 June 1977 The Australian National Committee of the UN Study Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) held a workshop on this subject at the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Physics, Aspendale on June 2 and 3. The objectives of the workshop were: 

A: To communicate to the interested Australian scientific community — i) The results of the recent SCOPE meeting in Ratzeburg and the ERDA meeting in Miami on the C02 – climate problem.  (Pearman, 1977 Clean Air)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 333ppm.  As of 2025, 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 for this was the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide build-up was going to be a Real Problem, and probably Quite Soon was just forming – a series of international meetings had taken place, and Pearman was at a couple of them.
You have to remember, this was way before email and easy communications. You couldn’t just circulate pdfs…

The specific context was that Australian scientists had been measuring C02 amounts for a few years – first on planes, and about now, at Cape Grim in Tasmania.

What I think we can learn is this: 

As human beings – we knew enough to be worried, half a century ago

As “active citizens” – we knew enough to be worried, half a century ago

Academics might want to ponder… we knew enough to be worried, half a century ago.

What happened next: xx

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

The 1974 post about Australia and climate at RMets

References

 (as academic as possible, with DOIs if they exist.) hyperlinks.

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.

If you want to get involved, let me know.

If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).

Also on this day: 

June 2, 1986 – US Senators get going on climate

June 2, 1989 – “James Hansen versus the World” – good article on actual #climate consensus let down by title

June 2, 2002 – Low carbon spaces, eh… SDC RIP – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Australia

 May 30, 1996 – Minerals Council investment pays off, again…

Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, May 30th, 1996,

The Federal Government’s promise of no new taxes included carbon and other so-called greenhouse taxes, the Minister for the Environment, Senator Robert Hill, told the Minerals Council of Australia in Canberra yesterday

Callick, R. (1996) Greenhouse tax off the agenda, Hill tells miners. Australian Financial Review, May 31

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 362ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the fossil fuel lobby had been fighting – half-assedly but with structural advantages and then cleverly and successfully – against any carbon pricing since the late 1980s.  They’d created something called the (Australian) Industry Greenhouse Network in the early 1990s, and it had spearheaded the fight against the Toyne/Faulkner carbon tax proposal of 1994.  But the Australian Mining Industry Council had gone Too Far on the question of Aboriginal land rights. They’d had to call in one of capitalism’s fixers – Geoff Allen – and on his advice rebrand as the Minerals Council of Australia and change their CEO. Once that was done, both Labor and Liberal meatpuppets, sorry, “politicians” were happy to bend the knee.

What I think we can learn from this. The trade associations are a good (not perfect, but good) barometer of what a sector wants and how the state responds.

What happened next. The MCA kept on winning. Which meant everyone bar the C-suite and the shareholders kept losing. And the losing accelerated.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 30, 1990 – Midnight Oil do a gig outside Exxon’s HQ in New York

May 30, 1996 – Denialist goons smear scientist

May 30, 2007 – Kevin Rudd pledges to ratify Kyoto, set emissions target and create an ETS

Categories
Australia Energy

May 29, 1992- ANAO says it will look at DPIE’s energy management programme

I know, I know, hardly scintillating!

Thirty five years ago, on this day, May 29th, 1992,

“On 29 May 1992, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) announced its intention to undertake an efficiency audit of DPIE’s energy management program. The audit was to consider the potential for improvement in the administration of the program and in the reporting of program performance. The auditors focussed on the administration of the interim greenhouse gas response initiatives with a view to contributing to efficiencies in the implementation of the NGRS’”

House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts EFFECTIVENESS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION review of Audit Report No. 32 1992-93—an efficiency audit of the Implementation of an Interim Greenhouse Response

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was various “greenhouse” responses had been proposed. Most had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside. Those that had survived the hazing and salami slicing needed to be looked at for “value for money” etc.

What I think we can learn from this is that you can’t teach an elephant to tapdance.

What happened next  On this particularly? I don’t know. But have a look at Australia’s response to climate change and tell me it hasn’t been catastrophically suicidal. Go on.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 29, 1968 – UN body says “let’s have a conference, maybe?”- 

May 29, 1969 – “A Chemist Thinks about the Future” #Keeling #KeelingCurve

May 29, 2007 “Climate Clever” ad campaign in attempt to save John Howard – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Australia

May 29, 1989- “We will all be flooded”

Thirty six years ago, on this day, May 9th, 1989 the Canberra Times pointed to sea level rise as a thing.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that by mid 1989 you could not move but for documentaries, newspaper articles, magazine articles about the Greenhouse Effect, at least in Australia. This was part of that.

What I think we can learn from this is that we got all the warnings we needed.But “we” – civil society – was never able to overcome its own inertia and fears, the resistance of the state and the corporates. Not even able to really try, unless you count manifestos, marches and other meaningless maunderings in the absence of sustained, iterative, reflective praxis – and who has the mental, financial, emotional or temporal bandwidth for any of that? 

What happened next. The August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein knocked the issue of The Environment from its perch (something had to – journalists and readers were getting bored!). It turns out we cannot easily – in the words of Donna Haraway – “stay with the trouble.” And then the denial campaigns properly kicked in and everyone settled into a generations-long game of kayfabe, of pretend. Eventually though, by the late 2010s onwards, the consequences of previous failure began to catch up with us. Mephistopheles was knocking on the door, waiting to collect…

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.

Also on this day: 

May 9, 1959 – “Science News” predicts 25% increase of C02 by end of century (Bert Bolin’s guesstimate) – All Our Yesterdays

May 9, 2009 – Another white flag goes up on the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”

May 9, 2016 – South Australia’s last coal-plant shuts down 

Categories
Australia IPCC

 May 28, 1990 – “Global Warming is really here” (IPCC First Assessment Report)

Thirty five years ago, on this day, May 28th, 1990, the Canberra Times reports on the report of Working Group 1 (the science bit) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Mussared, D. 1990. Global warming is really here: UN.  Canberra Times, May 28, page 11

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the IPCC had been agreed in 1988, with pressure from the United States Government, which was keen to avoid a repeat of the ozone issue, where uncontrollable scientists had “bounced” (in the perception of politicians and state functionaries) governments into action. It was not a precedent they wanted reinforced, so the IPCC was set up to head off things like the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases….

The IPCC was asked to produce reports in November 1988 and did so in record time. The Working Group 1 report was presented to Thatcher’s cabinet by John Houghton, head of the Met Office and head of Working Group 1.

What I think we can learn from this. The politicians were briefed. It is not a question of whether they knew enough. They did.

What happened next. The negotiations for a climate treaty were deformed by resistance from the United States, the Gulf states and then Australia. No targets and timetables were set for emissions reductions by rich countries. The IPCC sank into a routine of producing special reports as requested and assessment reports on a five or seven year cycle.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 28, 1954 – Will we control the weather?!

May 28, 1956 – Time Magazine reports on “One Big Greenhouse”

May 28, 1969 – “Ecology and Politics in America” teach-in, Berkeley

May 28, 1982 – “International Conference on Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Plant Productivity”  – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Australia

May 22, 2000 – Industry versus the greenhouse trigger…

Twenty-five years ago, on this day, May 22nd, 2000,

Industry started a strong campaign against the Environment Minister, Senator Robert Hill’s, proposed greenhouse trigger yesterday. This follows a fiery Cabinet discussion on Tuesday [23rd] over new greenhouse measures proposed by the Senator.

The Federal Cabinet is understood to have reached a clear understanding on Tuesday that no extra greenhouse requirements should be imposed on the proposed $1billion Kogan Creek power station in Queensland.

It rejected a memo from Senator Hill that the project be forced to invest in greenhouse-abatement projects to offset its own emissions. However, a spokesman for the Environment Minister said the Cabinet had not made a final decision.

2000 Taylor, L. 2000. Industry adds its weight to oppose greenhouse move. Australian Financial Review, 25 May 25, p.7.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in the lead up to the Kyoto COP in late 1997 Prime Minister John Howard had been forced to make some public promises about climate action.  He’d then done everything he could to drag his heels/slow things down.  But the pressure was still there, and there was another election coming.

What I think we can learn from this is that Australian politicians have been trying to do as little as they can get away with for a very long time.

What happened next. The greenhouse trigger was defeated – god forbid that Ministers would have to take a credibility hit to wave through dodgy projects every time a dodgy project came along… Soon, they’d have no credibility left…

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.

Also on this day: 

May 22, 1972 – Horizon doco “Do you Dig National Parks?” – All Our Yesterdays

May 22, 2007 – “Clean coal” power station by 2014, honest…

May 22 – Build Back Biodiversity: International Biodiversity Day

Categories
Australia

May 22, 1989 – Greenhouse plebiscite mooted

On this day 36 years ago, it was reported that the Federal Environment Minister Graham Richardson said there might need to be a referendum….

The Federal Minister for the Environment, Senator Richardson, has floated the idea of holding a referendum to increase the Commonwealth’s powers to override the States on environmental issues such as the greenhouse effect.

He raised the idea at an environmental conference at the weekend.

Dunn, R. 1989. Plebiscite mooted. Australian Financial Review, May 22

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in early 1989 everyone was running around talking about climate change. The denialists hadn’t got their act together properly yet (that would come) and neither had business (which traditionally waits anyway, to see if these things burn themselves out).

What I think we can learn from this is that it was obvious to people then that there would be opposition from state governments and that log-jams would be the norm.

What happened next. There was no referendum (and probably a good thing, because they usually fail in Australia). And there was opposition from state governments and that log-jams were the norm.

xxx

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.

Also on this day: 

May 22, 1972 – Horizon doco “Do you Dig National Parks?” – All Our Yesterdays

May 22, 2007 – “Clean coal” power station by 2014, honest…

May 22 – Build Back Biodiversity: International Biodiversity Day

Categories
Australia

May 18, 2011- Malcolm Turnbull disses “direct action” on Lateline

Fourteen years ago, on this day, May 18th, 2011,

18 May 2011: Malcolm Turnbull explains on Lateline that direct action is “a very expensive charge on the budget.” He explains its merits are that: “It can be easily terminated. If in fact climate change is proved to be not real”.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Turnbull had wanted to cooperate with Rudd on passing the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, but Rudd was enjoying Turnbull getting roasted by the LNP knuckle-draggers too much and so said no. (Rudd is a weapons-grade jerk. This does not mean Turnbull isn’t one too.) Turnbull lost the leadership of the Liberal Party in November 2009, and lurked on the backbenches.

What I think we can learn from this. It was an awful soap opera. No way to run a country. Pure banana republic stuff…

What happened next. Tony Abbott became Prime Minister and his grotesque inadequacy – obvious to those who disliked him – eventually became apparent to even his “supporters”. Turnbull knifed him in 2015, and then got knifed himself in 2018. It made a Jacobean tragedy look like playschool. Meanwhile, the emissions kept climbing, the impacts became ever more obvious. Dumb as a rock.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 18, 1953 – Newsweek covers climate change. Yes, 1953.

May 18, 1967 – NA Leslie at Institute of Petroleum, citing Barry Commoner on C02 build up – All Our Yesterdays

May 18, 1976 – US congress begins hearings on #climate

May 18, 2006- Denialist nutjobs do denialist nutjobbery. Again.