Category: Australia

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Australia International processes Predatory delay UNFCCC United Nations United States of America

Feb 25 1992- business groups predict economic chaos if action is taken on #climate

On 25th of February 1992 20 business associations from nine different countries try to slow down progress towards the impending Rio Earth Summit agreements by predicting economic calamity and doom: the same old story. 

1992 On 25 February at UN headquarters (New York City, USA), 20 business associations from 9 countries released a joint statement to the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change….

Anon. 1992. International Business Associations Issue Statement on Climate Negotiations. Global Environmental Change. Vol. 4, No. 5 13 March.

You will be shocked, shocked to learn that Australian business interests were in that mix – “The business associations, nearly half of which are from Australia, are in the fields of fossil fuel and energy production, manufacturing, and metals.”

Why this matters

We need to remember that whenever governments and state institutions are forced to consider the long-term well-being of constituents/future generations, there will be short termist vested interests pushing in the opposite direction. That’s just the way it is. 

What happened next

A weakened Earth Summit. Treaty text was put forward, not entirely due to business interest, but also the US administration of George HW Bush in June of 1992. This was then ratified and then gave us the COPs for climate and biodiversity. Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide accumulates, the biodiversity collapse accelerates. And to young folk out there, I’m sorry. We old fuckers, we blew it. You have every right to feel betrayed and gaslit let down by your parents and your grandparents

The business associations? They’re singing differently, but the song remains the same…

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Australia Carbon Pricing

Feb 23, 2009 Penny Wong flubs the CSPR… The CPSR..  THE PCRS. Oh, hell. #auspol

On the day 23rd of February 2009, Australia’s climate minister, Senator Penny Wong – full disclosure, I knew her when we were both at Adelaide University – confused the policy that she was advocating the carbon pollution reduction scheme.

“Under pressure from the mounting criticisms about how the CPRS cancels out the benefits from individual emissions reductions, Wong responded on the ABC’s 7.30 Report on February 23 that individual reductions will allow the government to increase carbon targets in subsequent years. This prompted an incredulous response from Andrew Macintosh, associate director of the Australian National University Centre for Climate Law and Policy. “Either Wong doesn’t understand her own scheme or she is deliberately lying”, he wrote on Crikey.com.au on February 24.”

The context is this. The Howard Government, 1996 to 2007 had successfully resisted all calls to meaningful action and climate change and even meaningless stuff like an ETS, even from within its own cabinet. Kevin Rudd used this uselessness on climate change – or rather, this defence of fossil fuel interests, which is not useless to fossil fuel interests – as part of his branding, to become prime minister. And in 2008, a torturous, confused, complex, complicated and ultimately corrupted process to create a carbon pollution reduction scheme had unfolded. 2009 was to be the year when the legislation was pushed through and what Wong was doing was trying to sell it. But the CPRS was insanely complex and hard to explain. And I for one, taken with the idea of a very simple carbon tax which might be less “efficient”, but more effective and hard to game was the way forward. It was not to be… 

Why this matters 

Because when politicians make complicated proposals, they lose the public and the public thinks this is going to be unfair, there are going to be loopholes, the rich will get their way and the public is usually right. “And the policies are planned, which we won’t understand” as TV Smith sings…

What happened next 

The CPRS failed to get through first time in the middle of the year, as was expected, and then didn’t get through again in November, December. And therein lies a story….

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Australia

Feb 22, 2000 – Japanese coal-burning to be dealt with by Australian trees?

On this day, February 22, in the year 2000, Japan and Australia talked up a deal that would have allowed carbon offsets and carbon trading using New South Wales as a giant carbon sink. 

Zinn, C. 2000. Japan in eco-credit deal with Australia. The Guardian, 22 February https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/feb/22/2 Australian forest authorities have been contracted to plant 40,500 hectares of trees (about 100,000 acres) on behalf of one of Japan’s largest power companies in a controversial scheme to fight global warming. The trees are meant to offset some of the greenhouse gas emissions generated in Tokyo. The Tokyo Electric Power Company signed the deal, which could cost up to £50m, with the New South Wales’s forestry division to grow hard and softwood plantations to capture carbon dioxide (CO2). But environmentalists question whether the project, scheduled to run for 10 years, will work. They claim the area is too small and that the forests must be maintained forever or the CO2 will go back into the atmosphere when the trees are processed.

The context is this. New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr had long been aware, and I mean long been aware of climate change as a problem – going all the way back to 1971 and a television appearance of Paul Ehrlich. He became premier of New South Wales in 1995. And there was a lot of interest in carbon trading and carbon sinks in the aftermath of the December 1997 meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Kyoto, Japan, 

Japan, although energy efficient, was using a lot of coal from Australia. And so there was a certain symmetry in the deal, which did not ensue, because Australia just wasn’t going to ratify Kyoto. And without that, it couldn’t be “in” the sorts of deals. 

Why this matters

We need to remember that there are all sorts of fancy footwork, elegant solutions, in inverted commas, that do not come to pass. And even if they had, they would probably have been a disaster for biodiversity and not tackled the real problem. No, the basic problem is, nobody wants to cut their emissions, if it’s gonna cost money, and dampen the great God, economic growth

What happened next

Kyoto finally became law (minus the USA and Australia) in 2005.  17 years later, we’ve retreated from any binding targets to a “pledge-and-review” farce called the Paris Agreement.  We’re so screwed.

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Australia Predatory delay

Feb 20, 2006 – Clive Hamilton names a “Dirty Dozen”

On this day in 2006 Australian academic Clive Hamilton gave a speech in an Australian country town called Adelaide. In it he named his “dirty dozen” of polluters who were preventing climate action. The list included South Australian Senator Nick Minchin, Prime Minister John Howard, journalists and business figures.

Hamilton was, at that time one of scandalously few academics trying to talk about we’re one of the few academics trying to talk about the capture of the Australian state by fossil interests. He had also co-edited a volume called “Silencing Dissent.” 

There was no comeback to his speech. Nobody sued.  

Why this matters

For a long time, from the early 90s through to the mid-2000s, climate change – and especially resistance to climate policy – was a very very niche area.  There really were not that many people trying to keep tabs on who was slowing down what, and how.

What happened next 

The Dirty Dozen continued to be dirty.  The moment of concern was hijacked and wasted. Australia has had an horrific time of it with climate policy, gridlock and mayhem. Carpe the diems.

Here’s an account

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/dirty-dozen-accused-over-fossil-fuels/2006/02/20/1140284009877.html

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Australia Social Movements Unsolicited advice

Feb 3, 2009 –  Physical encirclement of parliament easier than ideological or political. #auspol

On this day, in 2009, at the climax of their three day Climate Action Summit, protesters linked arms around Parliament House in Canberra. Climate activism had exploded in 2006 in Australia, with everything from marches to, in the following years, direct action attempts to prevent the export of coal from Newcastle. Activist group Rising Tide had held climate camps and with the new Rudd Government talking about climate action, the time seemed ripe with promise. 

However, by the end of 2008, it was obvious that the Labour government which had promised so much was going to deliver at best, very, very little. Activists had interrupted Rudd’s National Press Club presentation at the end of 2008. And economist Ross Garneau had denounced Rudd’s “carbon pollution reduction scheme” with the words “Never in the history of Australian public finance has so much been given without public policy purpose, by so many, to so few,”

So 2009 looked like it was going to be the year when citizens said enough. However, it was not to be. Protest movements struggle, once an issue is on the agenda, because many who would otherwise support it, say, “you’ve got to give the process time, you’ve got to see what emerges.” This, of course, plays into the hands of incumbents who know very well how to slow things down, how to sideline proposals, how to water down commitments, how to demand extensions, and special treatment.  If the insurgents don’t have a class interest that binds them together, they are even more vulnerable…

And of course, this was all happening in the middle of the global financial crisis. (But there is always some reason not to act on a long term problem, like climate change.) 

Why this matters? 

We need to understand that you can physically, symbolically encircle a parliament but actually restricting the ability of elected politicians to weasel out and to water down is a much tougher proposition requiring different skills, different capacities. 

What happened next?

Rudd’s CPRS failed to get through Parliament early in 2000. And in mid 2009, and failed again, in December of that year, when the Liberals revolted, the Greens refused to support it. And the rest of the story is horrible. But we know that.

See also

Greenpeace summary

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing Economics of mitigation Politics

Jan 21 (2010) – The flub that sank a thousand policies #auspol

On this day, in 2010, – yes, another Australia one, but it “matters” –  Australian  Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, was caught out having to admit that his proposed “carbon pollution reduction scheme” was dead and that he was kicking the whole climate issue into the long legislative grass.

The CPRS was an insanely complex piece of legislation. Economist Ross Garnaut said of it in December 2008 that  “”Never in the history of Australian public finance has so much been given without public policy purpose, by so many, to so few,”“ – and that’s before the further watering down. Green groups had called it a give-away to the fossil fuel lobby, and the Green Party had refused to support it in parliament in late November 2009, meaning that it failed to become law.

Rudd was in Norwood, a leafy, and relatively affluent suburb of a large country town called Adelaide in South Australia.

As leader of the Australian Labor Party, Rudd had used climate change as a battering ram to differentiate himself from Prime Minister John Howard, and been elected to do something about the issue. As Prime Minister from late 2007, he had been playing chicken with the Liberal National Party, especially its leader Malcolm Turnbull, and had initially rejoiced when Turnbull was replaced by the dark horse (and subsequent wrecking ball) Tony Abbott. 

But the climate conference in December 2009 in Copenhagen didn’t go well. And in the aftermath, Rudd ignored the urging of senior Labour Party members to call a snap election on the question of climate policy, and then didn’t even come up with a plan B. So he was caught on the hop. We know all of this because the period is intensely reported in the battle of the memoirs. And I’d alert you to Philip Chubb’s Power Failure. Julia Gillard’s My Story, Paul Kelly’s Triumph and Demise. 


What happened next?  Australia entered a period of extreme volatility about climate change that  has brought down successive prime ministers and left the country with enormous policy failures around climate, energy, renewables, you name it. If Rudd had had the courage of his convictions, or even just taken on the Green Party idea of a temporary carbon tax while an Emissions Trading Scheme was devised/an election held, none of this needed to have happened. And here we are. 

Why this matters? Because I think you can make an argument that Australia’s confusion and cynicism about climate change and politics is directly related to Rudd’s failure to pursue the climate agenda to the ballot box again, if needs be.,

Rudd had enjoyed going on and on about climate change as “the great moral challenge of our generation” (which it is). People believed him. Rudd’s popularity remained stratospheric. Then, when people decided that Rudd had been using climate as just another “positioning issue,” they felt cheated, betrayed, taken for fools. Rudd’s personal approval ratings took a massive hit. Climate was the only issue, but it certainly was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

So if you, as a political leader, are going to use climate change as an issue, you better bring your A game and if your A game doesn’t work, you better switch to your B game, which is as good as your A game. And if you don’t, you will cause havoc. And it is now harder than in Rudd’s day, because everyone is cynical, everyone is kinda terrified, whether they can articulate it to themselves or not.

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Australia Ignored Warnings Industry Associations

January 20 (1992) Gambling on climate… and losing #auspol

On this day 30 years ago…, well, let me speculate. Imagine a middle-aged Australian businessman. Let’s call him Dave (“Dave-o” to his mates). Two kids, chasing his third tawdry affair with his fourth secretary, trying to dodge a second heart attack. Doctor telling him to cut back on the booze and the smoking.

Dave is sitting at the lunchtime talk of the CEDA in Australia, and he’s listening to the keynote speaker Don Carruthers of mining giant CRA (now Rio Tinto) say that the federal Government’s stance for the Rio Earth Summit in June – lead by that silly woman minister Ros Kelly – is going to threaten the Australian economy. And Dave’s next pay rise.

Here’s what the Australian newspaper reported the following day

Stewart, C. 1992. Green policies ‘flawed’. The Australian, January 21, p.3. 

“The Federal Government’s environmental proposals for the United Nations inaugural earth summit conference in Brazil in June are seriously flawed and run counter to our own economic interests, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia heard yesterday. Mr Don Carruthers, a director and group executive of mining giant CRA Ltd, told a CEDA lunch in Melbourne that the Australian stance in the lead-up to the Rio de Janeiro conference – which will be the world’s largest environment forum – would, if adopted, pose a direct threat to the international competitiveness of our economy.”

Let’s imagine, Dave is sat there, hearing Don Carruthers fulminate, and he remembers that before coming to the event he had, uncharacteristically, idly leafed through the Canberra Times (one of the more serious newspapers in Australia).

On page three, he had seen the following. 

Anon, 1992. Greenhouse cynics gambling with future. Canberra Times, 20 January. 

“One of the CSIRO’s top scientists says doubters of the greenhouse effect are gambling with the future of the world. Dr Graeme Pearman, coordinator of the CSIRO’s climate change research program, said yesterday there was little doubt global warming was a reality according to all the best scientific models.”

I wonder how Dave reconciled these two items. Does he decide that he’s 45 or 50 in a position of authority, but not necessarily power and there’s no margin in rocking the boat? That it might not be happening, anyway. Is he gonna think about being able to retire and leave the problem  – if it exists – for his teenage children, who’ve been on the demonstrations have encouraged him to join Greenpeace and buy recycled toilet paper, to deal with?

Which way does Dave-o jump? Any given individual might jump one way or the other. They might struggle (see Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg’s book about Australian middle-managers at a later date). 

But ultimately, as a species, as a society, as a political class, we know which way Australia jumped – towards ever more fossil fuel exports, and disdaining the domestic possibilities of renewables until the late 2000s.

As a species, it turns out that we lost Pearman’s gamble. What would you say to those people, to Dave, if you could have them here now for five minutes?

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Australia Green Jobs

Jan 18 (1993) Job’s not a good un. “Green Jobs in Industry Plan” achieves … nothing. #auspol

On this day in 1993 the Australian Conservation Foundation (sort of akin to the UK version of Friends of the Earth) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions  (akin to the TUC) released a joint statement about the environment and employment.

As Noakes (1993) reports – 

“A major new effort to develop jobs which protect the environment”, was how the January 18 joint statement by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Conservation Foundation described their joint Green Jobs in Industry Plan. The scheme was launched at the Visyboard Paper and Cardboard Recycling Plant in Melbourne by Peter Baldwin, minister for higher education and employment services.”

This came at the tail end of concern about “Ecologically Sustainable Development.” Its champion, Bob Hawke, had been toppled, the new Prime Minister (Paul Keating) was not – to put it mildly – a fan of environmentalists and their concerns. The whole thing must have seemed doomed (and it was).

What happened next? Well, does Australia have the environmental jobs sector it could/should have? Or the carbon tax (the ACTU had a role, in 1995, of scuppering one).

Why this matters – we need to realise that getting greenies and union types together is a lot harder than it looks/”should” be. We need to think about previous failed efforts, and why they failed. But we tend not to, because it would raise awkward questions and make us feel bad.

References

Noakes, F. (1993) ACTU and ACF launch green jobs program. Green Left Weekly January 27th

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Australia Predatory delay

Jan 16, 1995: There’s power in a (corporate) union #auspol

On this day 27 years ago corporate interests met in Canberra (political capital of Australia) in their ongoing struggle against a dreaded (although tiny) proposed carbon tax. The business press had the story – 

Callick, R. 1995. Industry forces gather to slow carbon tax momentum. Australian Financial Review, 16 January, p.8.

REPRESENTATIVES of a substantial group of Australian industries meet in Canberra today to draft a joint response to invitations issued by the Minister for the Environment, Senator Faulkner, for separate talks over the next fortnight on his carbon tax proposal.

I could go on and on about this (in fact, I once did).

What happened next – Faulkner withdrew his proposal. The idea of a tax in and of itself mostly died (though see the Greens’ proposal in the aftermath of Kevin Rudd failing to get the CPRS through). Australia still doesn’t price carbon.

Why this matters. It’s good to see how business interests combine and co–ordinate their efforts.  It turns out, that, as the song goes, “there’s power in a union.” Especially a union of corporate giants. Who knew.

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Australia Politics Predatory delay

1995, Jan 9: “Efficiency” promises vs hated and feared regulation/taxation #Predatory Delay #auspol

On this day in 1995, as part of its war to head off a carbon tax, the fossil fuel lobby released a report claiming that Energy Efficiency would be a better better bet than the (dreaded, to them) carbon tax being proposed by the Australian Environment Minister John Faulkner.

1995 Gill, P. 1995. Energy efficiency outstrips gains of carbon tax: study The Australian Financial Review 9th January

It was part of a flurry of “the sky will fall” reports that said even the mildest of carbon taxes would cause untold economic devastation to the Australian economy (a tactic still being used, because, well, it works).

Why this matters – we need to remember that the rhetoric of “efficiency” and clean green growth to head off even the mildest of reformist measures and regulation is a favoured and time-honoured tactic of those who don’t want anyone to get between them and their supply.  See Jeremiah Bohr’s 2016 Environmental Politics article for how the alleged “free-marketers”  square that circle.

What happened next: The carbon tax proposal was defeated, and morphed into “emissions trading schemes”. These waxed and waned, and a national one was finally introduced in July 2012. It was promptly axed by the next government and down (under) to this day, the very mention of it is enough to send shadow climate change ministers into a whiter shade of pale.  

Further reading

Bohr, J. (2016) The ‘climatism’ cartel: why climate change deniers oppose market-based mitigation policy. Environmental Politics, Vol. 25, 5.  https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2016.1156106


See also

Jevons Paradox

Ecological Modernisation