“protesters besieged the Marrickville office of Labor MHR and minister, Anthony Albanese. News reports record that ‘angry’ demonstrators jeered and booed: one ‘female protester grabbed Mr Albanese by the tie and called him “gutless” and a “maggot”’ (AAP 2011). This was one of a series of anti-carbon tax protests held during 2011–12.”
(Ward, 2015: 225) See also – Lentini, R. 2011. Democracy-is-dead mob takes its anger to Anthony Albanese’s door. Daily Telegraph 2 September.
On this day the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was 390.33ppm. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
We need to remember that this happened, that there are people who will scream blue murder at the smallest effort to do anything about climate change
What happened next?
The legislation got through. Then it was repealed by the Liberal-National Party government. Albanese… dunno what he did next..
On this day August 30 1990, the IPCC’s meeting in Sundsvall, Sweden featured attempts by the USA and Australia to water down policy findings.
The IPCC had been set up in 1988, in part to stop climate scientists being too independent and making a repeat of what happened over ozone less likely (The Reagan Administration had felt ‘bounced’). It had delivered its first report ahead of the Second World Climate Conference (which had been pushed back a few months so that it could also serve as the starting point for international negotiations for the impending climate treaty).
Some nations (but not – at this point – Australia) had said, with varying degrees of sincerity/seriousness, that they would try to cut their emissions by 20 per cent by 2005. This target had been agreed at a conference in June 1988, and so was known as the “Toronto Target” (Some NGOs at Toronto had been pitching even higher, btw).
The Australian Federal Labor Government was wrestling over this – The previous Environment Minister, Graham Richardson, had lost a Cabinet battle over it in May 1989. HIs successor, Roz Kelly, was still trying to get it through, in the face of opposition – e..g. A “Labor Party’s caucus primary industries and resources committee report, [chaired by] Brian Courtice (Qld). The report said the Government had been conned by green groups and would risk future electoral success if it continued to “appease” them.”
So, anyway, against that backdrop, this is entertaining –
“Mrs Kelly said reports last week that the Australian delegation to the International Panel on Climate Change in Sweden [IPCC 4th Session SUNDSVALL 27-30 August 1990] had supported moves by the United States to water down its policy findings were being investigated. The delegates had been told before leaving for the meeting to support the Toronto targets.”
My Conversation piece about the Sundsvall meeting here.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 353 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
There are no “pure” processes from which we fall. Everything is messy, contested. Organisations (states, corporations etc) defend their interests, try to shape narratives.
What happened next?
A weak weak treaty was agreed in 1992.
Since 1990, human emissions have gone up by about 67% per cent. The age of consequences is here for some (ironically mostly those least to blame) and is imminent for everyone.
On this day, August 29, 1990, the Australian mining and forestry industries – so long accustomed to freezing the greenies out of policymaking forums, had a tantrum.
“The mining and forestry industries last night threatened to pull out of the Government’s sustainable development consultations unless the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, repudiated highly critical comments by the Minister for the Environment, Mrs Kelly.
In a speech to the Fabian Society last night, Mrs Kelly attacked the Australian Mining Industry Council and the National Association of Forest Industries for their views on sustainable development.
Mrs Kelly said AMIC’s idea of a sustainable industry was “one in which miners can mine where they like, for however long they want. It is about, for them, sustaining profits and increasing access to all parts of Australia they feel could be minerally profitable even if it is of environmental or cultural significance”.”
Garran, R. 1990. Mining, forestry groups threaten to leave talks. Australian Financial Review, 30 August.
On this day the ppm was 353 ppm. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
Sometimes, for reasons to do with public pressure, the normally closed shop of government (politicians and civil servants) and industry is prised open, briefly… It doesn’t last, and it rarely ends well…
What happened next?
The Ecologically Sustainable Development Process ended up happening, and some decent suggestions got put forward by various green groups, especially folks from the Australian Conservation Foundation. And it all got filed in the “circular file” thanks to the next Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and Federal bureaucrats (see earlier post this month!). Turns out the state is not a wise neutral arbiter. Who knew…
On this day, August 22, 1988, two Australian scientists warned that eventually Australia might need to take in Pacific islanders whose homes had disappeared under the waves.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 350.49 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Australia may need to take in a wave of environmental refugees from coral atolls in the Pacific and Indian oceans, according to two scientists.
The islands’ inhabitants face being displaced by a likely rise in sea level due to the greenhouse effect, they say.
The prospect was raised yesterday at the 26th Congress of International Geographical Union in Sydney by Dr Peter Roy, of the NSW Department of Mineral Resources, and Dr John Connell, of the University of Sydney.
Quiddington, P. 1988. Scientists warn of islands’ peril. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans mentioned this sort of thing. Did nowt significant, but it came up in at least one of his speeches, iirc.
Why this matters.
The levels of injustice, the harm caused to future generations. It’s just mind-boggling.
What happened next?
Australia has basically continued to shit on everyone’s future.
On this day, 21 August, 1972, the editor of Nature, John Maddox, was on the ABC’s “Monday Conference” (a high brow TV show). And he dismissed climate change as a problem, as he had in his recent book “The Doomsday Syndrome.”
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 326.3 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
ABC, 1974. Saving our small world: Monday Conference on population, ecology and resources. Sydney: ABC Books
Why this matters.
We knew a lot earlier than 1988. Sure, you can’t really blame anyone in the early 70s – but by the late 70s, “we” knew enough.
On this day, August 20, 1997, a mining trade industry figure, Dick Wells of the Minerals Council of Australia totally misrepresents what the IPCC was by this time saying about climate change.”
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 362.4 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“In an interview on ABC television, 7.30 Report on 20.8.97, Dick Wells stated that industry did not support the assertion that most scientists believe a build up of gases will cause climate change. Instead, industry supports the IPCC results which, he asserts, conclude that there is doubt about the science. Mr Wells goes on to say industry takes the issue seriously, that there is a “need for caution and we like good science … we’re a science based industry …” and concludes “there are a wide range of scientific opinions about what the impacts are going to be of any global warming and what we’re saying is it’s still prudent to do cost effective measures now and that’s what we’re embarking on with government but to go beyond those measures which deliver economic benefits, we think it would not be prudent to do so at this stage.””
(Duncan, 1997:84)
Yes, this would be the same IPCC whose second assessment report had – to howls of confected outrage from the Global Climate Coalition – concluded that the “balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”
Why this matters.
Industry gets to seem reasonable. Australians don’t get up out of their armchairs and demand much much more of their elected leaders. Result!
What happened next?
The mining industry kept on keeping on. Who do you think supplied that lacquered lump of coal to Scott Morrison to brandish in parliament? Who do you think his inner circle was made up of?
On this day, August 19 1997, a denialist conference took place in Canberra, in the run up to the Kyoto Conference of the Parties
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 362.4 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
There had been various acts of collaboration between the American and Australian denialists (Ray Evans, Hugh Morgan’s henchman, had been in Washington the year before, and various US scientists and activists had visited Australia for speaking tours, but this was ‘next level’.)
John Howard was trying to get Australia off the hook – as a developed country with high per capita emissions (all that coal-burning!) and huge coal exports, it could be expected to be in the firing line. He’d launched a diplomatic assault on this, and it suited the corporate interests in the United States to have Australia as an ally.
The Frontiers of Freedom Institute, a conservative corporate funded US think tank organised a conference in Canberra in conjunction with the Australian APEC Study Centre. The conference, entitled Countdown to Kyoto, was organised, according to the Australian, to “bolster support” for the Government’s increasingly isolated position on global warming in preparation for the Kyoto conference. US Senator Chuck Hagel, who co-sponsored the Senate resolution on a treaty agreement in Kyoto, was a speaker as was US Congressman John Dingell. Other speakers included the Chairman of Australian multinational BHP and the Director of the think tank, the Tasman Institute.
Malcolm Wallop, who heads the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, chaired the conference with Hugh Morgan, the head of Western Mining. Wallop was a US Senator for 18 years who boasts of his achievements in promoting SDI and opposing welfare, progressive taxation, Social Security, and government funding for higher education. Wallop said in a letter to US conservative groups: “This conference in Australia is the first shot across the bow of those who expect to champion the Kyoto Treaty.” He also stated that the conference would “offer world leaders the tools to break with the Kyoto Treaty.” The conference was opened by Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer who argued that tough emission reduction targets could put 90,000 jobs at risk in Australia and cost more than $150 million.
Patrick Michaels argued at the Countdown to Kyoto conference that the science to support “expensive and potentially disruptive policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions…is sorely lacking.” Michaels also gave the good news about global warming to a global warming seminar organised by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia, when he recently visited Australia. He has travelled the world on behalf of anti-climate treaty interests. In October he attended a conference similar to Canberra’s Countdown on Kyoto in Vancouver organised by the conservative think tank, The Fraser Institute. Also attending this conference was Robert Balling.
See also
Scorcher, Hamilton, 2007; p. 67
The Carbon Club by Marian Wilkinson
And tomorrow’s blog post too…
Why this matters.
It’s not just “progressives” who can do international cooperation… And when it really mattered, when there was still the outside chance of doing something meaningful on climate change, the “carbon club” was properly transnational…
What happened next?
Australia got a super-sweet deal at Kyoto. But then, the next President, selected by the Supreme Court, pulled the US out of the Kyoto process, and a year later, in 2002, Australia followed suit.
Kyoto was not “all that” – see the solid article on “The Veil of Kyoto”…
On this day, August 18 in 1996, Brian Tucker, who had headed up the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, and attended some important scientific meetings, reveals himself incapable of understanding that the world does not conform to how you would wish it to be.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 361.55 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“Brian Tucker, previous Chief of the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, is now a Senior Fellow at the IPA where he trades on his scientific credentials to push an ideological agenda. In 1996 in a talk on ABC’s Ockham’s Razor he stated that ‘unchallenged climatic disaster hyperbole has induced something akin to a panic reaction from policy makers both national and international”
Tucker, B. 1996. A Rational Consideration of Global Warming. Ockham’s Razor, ABC Radio National, 18 August.
Tucker was also busy writing screeds in the IPA’s magazine that, looking back, were frankly an embarrassment
Why this matters.
Beder notes that
Tucker’s article The Greenhouse Panic was reprinted in Engineering World a magazine aimed at engineers. The article, introduced by the magazine editor as “a balanced assessment,” argues that “alarmist prejudices of insecure people have been boosted by those who have something to gain from widespread public concern.”[42] This article, which would have been more easily dismissed as an IPA publication, has been quoted by Australian engineers at conferences as if it was an authoritative source.”
And thus is a counter-common sense “engineered.” Once bullshit is republished in other venues, it gains a halo effect from those other places, and gets repeated again, until finally it seems a solid piece of fact.
The CIA used to call it ‘surfacing’ (maybe still do?). Plant stories in local newspapers in the countries you’re trying to subvert, then quote those as “evidence” when trying to get more money out of the US government…
What happened next?
We kept digging up and exporting coal. Of course we did.
On this day, August 17, 2002, the fifteen other members of the Pacific Leaders’ Forum urge Australia (led by John Howard) to sign the Kyoto Protocol
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 372.03 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark says Pacific nations will continue to lobby Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
The final communique of this year’s Pacific Leaders’ Forum urges countries to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia is the only state of the 16-member Forum not to have agreed to the protocol.”
Pacific states urge Australia to sign Kyoto Protocol. 17 August 2002 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific – Text of report by Radio Australia on 17 August
Why this matters.
There’s a certain amount of work Penny Wong is going to have to do, yes?
Btw Kyoto was not going to Save The World – see the Veil of Kyoto.article by Howarth and Foxall.
What happened next?
Australia DID in fact ratify the Kyoto Protocol – once Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister. He then refused to do much of anything about setting Australia a real, ambitious target. And it all went very tits up on the domestic front…
On this day, August 16 2012, independent MP in the Australian Federal Parliament Tony Windsor has to explain the basic facts of life to Tony Abbott, then Opposition Leader
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 392.59 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
“The issue had also erupted about 12 months earlier, on 16 August 2012…. I’d had a gutful. His hypocrisy on the so-called carbon tax, or as it was originally cast, a price on carbon, was evident as the scheme had been supported by the Coalition in the lead-up to the 2007 election. Abbott and many inside and outside the parliament seemed to have forgotten that both sides of politics shared the same target for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. So when Abbott moved one of his many politically motivated suspensions of standing orders I gave him a spray about his hypocrisy on the matter….”
(Windsor, 2015: 212)
‘I will do anything, anything, to get this job’ – they were the comments, and people know that, and they should know it, because you are an absolute disgrace in the way in which you are wandering around on this issue. You have exactly the same target as the emissions trading scheme-pricing arrangements. You have exactly the same target in terms of the 1990 levels by 2020. And you have the audacity to actually say to people that you are going to achieve that target through a much more expensive arrangement than putting a price on carbon – particularly given the history that you have on this issue.
(Windsor, 2015: 218-9)
Why this matters.
You can be a Rhodes Scholar and dumb as a rock. That is all.
What happened next?
Abbott became Prime Minister. Of course he did. And the one thing he achieved? Repealing the carbon price that the Gillard government had shepherded through parliament.
