Category: Australia

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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

Categories
Activism Australia Coal Gender

2013, Jan 7: Paper (briefly) wraps rock. But coal wins in the end… #auspol

On this day in 2013 an activist called Jonathan Moylan sent out a fake press release, purporting  to be from a major Australian bank, saying it was withdrawing funding for the Whitehaven Coal mine at Maules Creek. The share price briefly plummeted.

Why this matters – this issue became part of the culture wars over coal and climate in Australia, in the lead up to the 2013 federal election that saw the ALP swept from office after only 6 years. The Coalition has been in charge ever since, regularly toppling its own leaders while exacerbating the climate crisis through a … well, it’s an ugly ugly story.

As for Moylan, well he escaped a jail term.  [These sorts of non-violent direct actions are now even more illegal than they were. We can expect to see a lot more of them between now and the breakdown(s).]
And the mine? Well, what do you think?

Categories
Australia Climate Justice

January 5, 2006 – strategic hand-wringing about “Our Drowning Neighbours”

On this day in 2006 Anthony Albanese MP (now leader of the Opposition and perhaps Australia’s next Prime Minister) and Federal Labor MP Bob Sercombe  launched  Our Drowning Neighbours, Labor’s Policy Discussion Paper on Climate Change in the Pacific.

This was part of the ALP’s use of climate as an  ‘wedge’ issue to differentiate itself from the (seemingly-endless) government of John Howard (we will be coming back to him more than once in the course of this project).   That use of climate as a wedge would accelerate markedly when, at the end of 2006, Kevin Rudd took over as opposition leader.

Why this matters. By the early 1980s, once the science and consequences of what was then called the “carbon dioxide problem” was basically settled, the sea level rise issue has been understood. And islands and low-lying states knew they had an existential (and not in the wanky Sartre sense) problem. And there have been endless declarations about this. And Australia, as the big beast in the South Pacific, and as the very big polluter (both domestically and via its coal – and more lately gas exports) is always going to be in the frame.

What happened next – The Labor Party formed a government in 2007, in the “first climate change election.”  Refugee issues were on the agenda for Rudd and then Gillard, but not in the way that Albanese and Seccombe might have thought..  Australia is now fortress Australia, and you wouldn’t bet on a different set of policies any time soon. Meanwhile, the small island states know that they will simply not be there in another fifty years.

For an overview on the issue, you could do worse than this 2009 paper from The Australia Institute “A fair-weather friend? Australia’s relationship with a climate-changed Pacific.”See also this coruscating piece from 2010 by Kellie Tranter. And an event report from October 2016 on Voices from the Climate Front Line.   See also 350 Pacific and SEED.

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Activism Australia UNFCCC United States of America

1992, Jan 3: Greenpeace vs POTUS on Climate Change

On this day, 30 years ago, to coincide with the visit of President George HW Bush to Australia, Greenpeace Australia took out newspaper adverts of the Statue of Liberty with smoke billowing from her torch, calling on the United States to drastically reduce its carbon emissions. 

The context for this was that negotiations for the climate treaty to be signed in Rio later that year were well underway. And all the signs were that the US would play a spoiling role. 

This matters, because that’s exactly what Uncle Sam did. The French said rightly, that targets and timetables for emissions reductions by wealthy countries should be included in the text of the treaty. The Americans replied, “if you put those in, we’re not coming.” The French blinked, reasoning that timetables and targets could be inserted later. They were at Kyoto, vastly inadequate, but there. And then the Americans didn’t ratify and withdrew from the process.

We are still living with the consequences of this. And our children, other people’s children, other people’s children will all also live with those. Not to mention all the other species we “share” this planet with. 

It’s always worth remembering that these agreements that we live with now were the result of previous proposals, compromises and in this case -as in many others – naked veto power.