Category: Australia

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Australia

May 15, 2006 – Australian Prime Minister John Howard spouting “nuclear to fix climate” nonsense

On 13 May 2006, with the climate issue becoming harder to ignore, Prime Minister John Howard – after meeting President George Bush and Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and wittering on about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership – started flying kites about the need for Australia to go nuclear. This escalated over the following days – see here about comments he made in Canada.

The context was this – Howard had spent the previous ten years, as Prime Minister, blocking renewables, favouring coal and fossil fuel exports, and trying (with great success) to slow international action on climate change. But the endless Millennium Drought, and international developments (Kyoto ratification, the EUETS) were beginning to make him nervous. So, along comes nuclear to wedge the opposition and make him look like he was doing enough…

Why this matters

We need to remember that when in a tight spot, elite politicians will always reach for a gleaming technofix.

What happened next

There was a report. It said nuclear would be too expensive. Kevin Rudd became opposition leader, started banging on about climate change as “the great moral challenge”, to be solved with… checks notes… an Emissions Trading Scheme and Carbon Capture and Storage…

. cartoon by Nicholson in Australian (as per National insecurity Australia book, available on scribd)

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Australia

May 13, 1992 – Australian business predicts economic armageddon if any greenhouse gas cuts made

On this day, May 13, 1992, Australian business groups did what they have done in the intervening 30 years – predicted imminent economic apocalypse, via “independent” studies, if even one lump of coal remained unburned.

The context was the impending Rio Earth Summit (though the text below makes it clear that threat was already receding).

The Australian business lobby had already fought a successful campaign against a carbon tax, and got lucky when Paul Keating took over from Bob Hawke as Prime Minister of Australia – Keating loathed the “Ecologically Sustainable Development” process Hawke had been forced to initiate in 1990. Keating’s loathing of greenies would escalate in the coming years.

1992 Brown, B. 1992. Pressure builds on Aust over greenhouse emissions. Australian Financial Review, 14 May, p.11. Australia may come under pressure to sign a declaration to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions, although a convention adopted at a United Nations meeting in New York last weekend set no target. Developing and European nations that could achieve stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000 are expected to push for this target at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June. A United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Control agreed last weekend on a text to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but without a specific target. The target will be considered by member governments before the Rio meeting.

But to reach the stabilisation target, Australia would need “excessively stringent government intervention”, according to one of two industry-commissioned studies released yesterday. The studies, prepared by the Canberra-based economic consultants ACIL Australia and Swan Consultants for the Business Council of Australia, said advice to the Government had seriously underestimated the economic costs of stabilising greenhouse emissions

Why this matters

Personally, I think it’s worth seeing the techniques used. Not because we can turn back time, not because the same exact tactics are still being used (though, well, basically they are). But because…? Dunno. Bearing witness?

What happened next

Australia signed and ratified the UNFCCC. It even introduced a worthless “National Greenhouse Response Strategy.” State and federal governments kept building coal-fired power plants, expanding and giving permission for more coal mines, as if there was no tomorrow.

And there isn’t much of one now, is there?

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Australia Ignored Warnings

May 10, 1978 – Women told that by 2000 “we will be frantically searching for alternatives to coal.”

There was a publication in Australia called Women’s Weekly. It came out, well, weekly (when it became a monthly publication in the 80s they, er, kept the name unchanged).

In the May 10 1978 issue they had one of those “what will the world be like in 2000” articles [people much younger than me probably don’t remember they hype and sense of excitement about the turn of the millennium?]

This particular article was by one David Howell, billed as “founder of the US journal “Energy Digest,” editor of “Community Planning Report” and “Energy Planning Report””

It’s worth a read. The bit I would draw your attention to is this-

“Coal will have become the major fuel source, especially for industrial uses and for heating office buildings and very large apartment houses. But society will by then have begun to accept the harsh reality, already posited by several leading scientists, that the carbon dioxide released to the air by the burning of fossil fuels threatens to alter our atmosphere beyond the ability of the human species to survive. By the year 2000 we will be frantically searching for substitutes for the coal which we will have substituted for oil and natural gas.”

“Gasified or liquefied coal – even if by that time it might have proven economic-ally feasible for some purposes – will not be the answer, because it would release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at the same rate….

10 May 1979


What happened next

Australia became the world’s leading coal exporter in 1984. Some people got very very rich and didn’t like the idea of Australia shifting from coal exporting, or from getting its own electricity from other sources. They were supremely effective in defending their interests…

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Australia

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

On this day, May 9 2009, the Australian newspaper carried a report that would surprise no close watcher of climate policymaking at the time.

Kevin Rudd had become Prime Minister of Australia in December 2007 with a promise and a mandate to take action on climate change. There followed a bewildering array of reports and documents (interestingly, economist Ross Garnaut was quickly sidelined because he lacked sufficient enthusiasm for “compensating” industries who were supposed to be changing their ways.

By the end of 2008 it was clear to activists (especially those who interrupted Rudd’s speech at the National Press Club) that Rudd’s basic idea was to give the rich and powerful whatever they wanted. That was the plan. And it got even worse in 2009, when he sent his climate minister on a “charm offensive.”

Steketee, M. 2009. Cool compromise. The Australian, 9 May, p.18.

WHEN Penny Wong did the rounds of environmental and business groups last week, they suddenly found her more receptive to their arguments. What were the key things they needed to be able to support the Government’s climate change package, she asked. The Climate Change Minister had a fair idea because she had heard their demands often enough, but this time she wasn’t fending them off. Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Wong already had decided on a new strategy to try to get the Government out of the political bunker.

Business demanded – and got – a delay to the start date of the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme. More was to follow…

Why this matters

In the absence of an enraged and engaged civil society, capable of more than spasms of emotion and outrage, then of COURSE “governance” is going to mean little more than doing whatever powerful industries allow. It’s easy to beat up on Rudd (and, actually, hits that sweet spot of being not only easy, but accurate and deserved), but where is the bold climate movement able to force better? Watch this space – the 2022 Federal elections in Australia may leave a bunch of climate-action-minded independents in a position of strength. Party like its early 2011 all over again!!

What happened next

Rudd couldn’t get his legislation over the line in June. When he came to try again in November he also couldn’t. Surprisingly the Greens weren’t going to vote for something they viewed as worse than useless. And then it all fell apart, with Julia Gillard left to pick up the pieces. And then… oh, it’s so exhausting and outlandish I can’t bring myself to type it up

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Australia United States of America

May 3, 1990 – From Washington to Canberra, the “greenhouse effect” has elites promising…

On this day, May 3 1990, different things happened around the world that are worth remembering.

First, in Washington DC a whole bunch of legislators had got together and announced that there should be a global Marshall Plan for Climate and Environment blah, blah, blah. It finished on the 2nd, so I am cheating (but already had two posts yesterday, so sue me.) It was reported on the 3rd in the New York Times.

The usual well-meaning words sincerely meant as well, but not connected to a set of social forces that could make it so.

Meanwhile, in Australia, probably more or less the same time, The Primary Industries Minister John Kerin, was telling the Australian Mining Industry Council Annual General Meeting annual that there was a good chance of a of a referendum allowing the federal to Commonwealth Government to gain powers over environmental issues from the States. This would have scared the bejesus out of The AMIC people.

Seccombe, M. 1990. Chance for green referendum, says Kerin. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 May. CANBERRA: Public support for Federal Government power to make national environment laws had grown to the point where a referendum could now succeed, the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, Mr Kerin, said yesterday. Mr Kerin raised again the need for the Commonwealth to wrest power from the States – first broached by the then-Minister for the Environment, Senator Richardson, last year – at the annual seminar of the Australian Mining Industry Council in Canberra.

It was not to be Australia remains a quarry with the state attached.

What happens next?

Well, the global Marshall Plan idea got filed in the circular file. Noise towards a referendum got quietened down, and the whole issue of climate got kicked into the “ecologically sustainable development process” long grass. And AMIC a couple of years later became so toxic that it had to change its leader and rebrand but not until it had helped in defeating another carbon tax proposal…

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Australia

May 2, 2009 – Australian Liberals warned of wipe-out if seen as “anti-climate action” #auspol

On this day, in 2009, it was reported that Australian Liberal senators were telling their industry backers that secret polling had them being wiped out if they didn’t say yes to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.”

Taylor, L. 2009. Turnbull must bridge Coalition split on ETS. The Australian, 2 May, p. 18. SENIOR Liberals are telling industry their internal polling shows the Coalition losing up to 10 seats in the House of Representatives and four in the Senate in a double dissolution election triggered by their rejecting Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme

The context is this Rudd had come to power in December 2007. promising that he would do something about climate change after the inaction and resistance of John Howard for 11 years. Rudd’s something amounted to a so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction scheme.

The :iberals were on the hook because they had agreed to an emissions produce reduction scheme of their own in the run up to the 2007 election campaign. And so it would look churlish if they did not support. Rudd knew this and was busy sticking the knife in

Significant portions of the Liberal Party and even more significant portions of the National Party which is the other part of the Coalition were not convinced by the climate science and are still not

Why this matters

We need to remember that even periods of so-called bipartisan consensus are fragile, and that there are those who will, until (even after?) the waters close over their heads/they all die of thirst, still deny 19th century physics.

What happened next? 

In November Malcolm Turnbull already damaged opposition leader overplayed his hand and ended up being toppled as opposition leader by an unexpected candidate Tony Abbott who had declared that the climate science was “absolute crap”

This led to a stop astonishingly turbulent period in Australian politics with multiple defenestrations, and assassinations, thanks to Rudd’s spinelessness after the Copenhagen debacle, in not calling a double-dissolution election.

But the short version is that a relatively anodyne and inadequate proposal for an economy-wide carbon price became impossible. And nothing in Australia’s future suggests anything other than an uninhabitable hellscape. 

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Australia International processes UNFCCC

April 25, 1996 – Greenpeace slams Australian government on #climate obstructionism

On this day, 25th of April 1996 Greenpeace International condemned Australia’s negotiating stance at the climate talks in Geneva.

“Gilchrist, G. 1996. Greenpeace Attacks Global Warming ‘spoiling Tactics’. Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April, p.2. Australia’s spoiling tactics in negotiations on tackling global warming undermined the nation’s “clean and green” international image, Greenpeace International’s top climate campaigner, Mr Bill Hare, said yesterday. He warned that Australia’s diplomatic position on climate change threatened its long-term trade interests.”

The context is that the second Conference of the Parties, following on from Berlin the previous year, was going to be an important to way station on the way to completing the so-called Berlin mandate, which called on rich nations to agree emissions cuts.

It was feared that the Australian Government’s obstruction tactics would move from softly-softly on display at the previous COP to full-on, shameless and unashamed heel dragging (In March of 1996 the Labor government had been replaced by John Howard’s “Liberal National” coalition.) 

And – getting ahead of ourselves (COP2 did not happen till July 1996) – so it came to pass…

“The discussions at the second COP to the UNFCCC in Geneva in 1996 saw Australia establish itself as a climate change laggard. Immediately before the conference the government questioned the science of climate change and opposed the idea of the IPCC’s new conclusions on climate change impacts providing the basis for negotiations.55 Significantly, they were joined in this concern only by OPEC states and the Russian Federation.56 Most importantly, however, the government’s position at the Geneva negotiations was to oppose the idea of legally binding targets on greenhouse emissions.57”

Macdonald, Matt. 2005a. Fair Weather Friend? Ethics and Australia’s Approach to Climate Change. Australian Journal of Politics and History 51 (2): 216–234.

Why this matters. 

We need to prepare criminal briefs for crimes against humanity and other species at The Hague

What happened next?

The Australian Government played a spoiler role as it still largely has, in the climate negotiations, they got a very sweet deal at Kyoto still refused to ratify. And as I may have mentioned, the carbon dioxide keeps accumulating. 

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Australia

April 24, 1994 – a carbon tax for Australia?

On April 24 1994, the Australian environment minister John Faulkner starts to fly a kite, as they say in the politics business.. The kite have a small carbon tax to help Australia stabilise its emissions, and have some sort of diplomatic cover when the UNFCCC started its meetings.

This is the opening of a policy stream or the continuation of a politics stream depending on which bit of John Kingdon you care to follow

Less than a year later, the effort was defeated. Australia never gets an effective long-term price on carbon dioxide and therefore (but not only for this), the emissions basically keep climbing

{Not the the carbon tax would have on its own being a solution. 

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that policy proposals that are relatively innocuous and minor will be treated as an existential threat by specific industries who will then respond accordingly and effectively.

And here we are. With the atmospheric concentrations climbing, human emissions climbing, temperatures, climbing, death rates going to climb. we had a slender chance to fix this – or at least give our wisdom a chance to catch up with our technologies.. Now it’s too late. And everything is fucked. 

What happened next?

The tax proposal got shot down in February 1995.  The idea of a tax was replaced with an emissions trading scheme, and that got shot down on multiple occasions. Finally became law in 2012, then repealed in 2014 by Tony Abbott.

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Australia

April 12, 1992 – seminar asks “How sustainable is Australian Energy?” (proposes switch to gas)

On the 12th of April 1992, the Australian Institute of Wnergy held a workshop seminar on the thorny topic of “How sustainable is Australian Energy?” And this came asthe momentum, the wave towards the 1992 Earth Summit was cresting. It was only two months away. So everyone was still up for getting together and schmoozing. And that’s what they did. There were proposals about switching to gas from coal because it was allegedly lower carbon. It only gives if you ignore the fugitive emissions.

And so it came to pass that the wave crested and broke 

Why this matters. 

For the same reason that this whole project matters, we need to know that we have been talking about doing something on climate for a very, very long time. 

What happened next?

The new Keating government (Keating, formerly Treasurer, toppled Bob Hawke at the end of 1991) was profoundly uninterested-through-to-actively-hostile on environmental matters generally, including “greenhouse” issues. So the momentum just died. In December the pissweak “National Greenhouse Response Strategy” (only one of those four words is accurate) was released. In 1996 John Howard came along and made the whole thing at least more honest… And the carbon dioxide accumulates…

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Australia UNFCCC

April 8, 1995 – Australian environment minister says happy with “Berlin Mandate”

On April 8 1995, Australian environment minister John Faulkner declared himself happy with the Berlin mandate that had emerged from the first COP..

Faulkner had just failed to get a carbon tax proposal through the cabinet of Labor. Prime Minister Paul Keating this was supposed to be a signal of Australia’s intent at the first Conference of the Parties of the UNFFFC held in Berlin in March, April.

The COP had finished despite the best efforts of Australia and other parties with a mandate that said industrialised countries of which Australia was one should turn up two years later at the third COP in order with concrete proposals and agreement for emissions reductions. 

1995  Noack, K. 1995 Faulkner sees way forward from Berlin. Canberra Times, 9 April.  

LONDON, Saturday: Australian Environment Minister John Faulkner said yesterday he was satisfied with the outcome of the Berlin climate change conference, saying it offered a way forward for all countries to combat global warming.

On the final day of the 11-day meeting, agreement was reached on a mandate for further negotiations on greenhouse gas emission reduction measures by developed countries.

Senator Faulkner, who was part of the group of ministers who hammered out the final agreement, said it was ultimately a successful conference given the wide range of interests represented.

“Australia’s very satisfied with the outcome of the group of ministers and the achievement of a mandate to negotiate a protocol,” he said from Berlin.

Why this matters. 

We have been failing to do more than agree to keep talking about climate change for a very very long time…

What happened next?

Faulkner was no longer environment minister after March of 96, when the Howard government took over the Berlin Mandate was agreed it took us to Kyoto in 97. And was useless and the carbon dioxide accumulates.