Exactly 20 years ago, the first “clean coal” conference began in Sydney.
“The Australian Coal Association says advances in technology have boosted the prospects for a zero emissions power station in the New South Wales Hunter Valley in the not too distant future.
“New clean coal technology and carbon capture and storage projects will be the main topics on the agenda at this week’s inaugural COAL21 annual conference which gets under way in Sydney today.”
Conference considers clean power generation – ABC News
COAL21 – 1st COAL21 annual conference (Conference) | ETDEWEB
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 380ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia had become the world’s biggest coal exporter in 1984 primarily from Queensland and New South Wales. From 1988 Australian political elites had had to pretend to give a damn about carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. There had been efforts to get a carbon pricing mechanism (first a tax and then an emissions trading scheme). All of these had come to nothing.
Australia had pulled out of the negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol, despite having extorted an extremely generous reduction target, the reduction being an increase in their emissions. But nonetheless, there were presentational concerns and probably some well-meaning people within various public and private bodies who genuinely believed that clean coal could be a thing, and it’s always nice to believe technosalvationist fairytales.
What I think we can learn from this is that people believe what they need to believe. People say what they need to say, and the emissions keep climbing.
What happened next
People said what they wanted to say, other people heard what they wanted to hear, and the emissions kept climbing.
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.
April 5, 1971- a UK scientist explains “pollution in context”
April 5, 2008 – Charlton Heston dies, star of first movie to mention the greenhouse effect