On November 5, 1997, twenty five years ago today, the Global Climate Coalition [bunch of oil companies, automobile companies and assorted denialists] co-ordinates an anti-Kyoto conference. With the third meeting of the UNFCCC (United Nations agreement on climate) looming, denialists funded by the oil and car industries (among others), met to try to make life even harder for the Clinton Administration.
1997 “On November 5, the GCC coordinated a national conference opposing the Clinton Administration’s involvement in the Kyoto conference. The conference was sponsored by a number of radical anti-environmental organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, People for the West!, and the Environmental Conservation Organization
A CLEAR view Vol 4, Number 16
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was xxxppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
Why this matters
“Our” failure to act on climate is not JUST down to ignorance/laziness etc. It has also been helped on its way by determined and clever opponents of action.
What happened next
The Kyoto Protocol was agreed, but neither the USA or Australia ever ratified it. It limped into existence because Russia DID ratify it, as a quid pro quo for getting into the World Trade Organisation. Kyoto was supposed to be replaced in 2012, but the 2009 Copenhagen meeting ended in chaos etc. And then Paris and… oh, what a shitshow.
On this day, October 22 in 1997, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (nasty neoliberal ‘think’tank) hosted a pre-Kyoto spine stiffening meeting.
“On October 22, 1997, the CEI hosted ABARE’s Brian Fisher at a luncheon with the aim of winning over “economic attaches to embassies of developing countries which might prefer differentiation to uniform reduction targets”. The CEI had “recognized the strategic importance of Australia in the climate change gambit” according to CEI research fellow (and Australian national) Hugh Morley. “If Australia sticks to its guns”, Morley said, “there might not be a Kyoto treaty after all.” (Hugh Morley, 1/11/97, “Australia Cool To Warming”, <www.cei.org/gencon/005,01305.cfm>.)”
From Jim Green “WMC Ltd: corporate greenhouse gangster”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 360.98ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm – but for what it is now, well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
American corporate interests were solidifying pre-existing links with Australian denialists (politicians, corporates, bureaucrats) – these had begun in earnest in 1990 (Tasman Institute hosting various folks) and then gradually strengthened. The “Countdown to Kyoto” conference had already been staged in Canberra, by this time…
Why this matters.
Think internationally. Those preventing climate action do.
What happened next?
Kyoto was a joke. Not a funny one. And here we are.
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 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 in 2001 the Minerals Council of Australia (the lobby group for the big mining outfits tried to stiffen the Howard government’s stance on the Kyoto Protocol with a media release with the catchy title “Government Must Stand firm on Kyoto.”.
Australia had extracted/extorted a sweet sweet deal at the 1997 negotiations about rich countries reducing their emissions. It had signed the deal, but NOT ratified it. At this particular moment, the USA had pulled out, but Australia had not. There was an election coming, and one that was not looking safe for Howard (this is pre-Tampa…) Would Howard ratify in order to deprive Labor of a stick to beat him with? The MCA wanted to make sure that unlikely event did not come to pass…
Why this matters.
Keep your eyes on what the big trade associations are saying (and – to the best you can – doing).
What happened next?
Business ended up splitting on Kyoto – the Business Council of Australia had to move from “don’t ratify” to “we have no settled position” because there was a stalemate between the pro- and antis within the members of the organisation.
“‘Kyoto’ has created a veil over the climate issue in Australia in a number of ways. Firstly, its symbolic power has distracted attention from actual environmental outcomes while its accounting rules obscure the real level of carbon emissions and structural trends at the nation-state level. Secondly, a public policy tendency to commit to far off emission targets as a compromise to implementing legislation in the short term has also emerged on the back of Kyoto-style targets. Thirdly, Kyoto’s international flexibility mechanisms can lead to the diversion of mitigation investment away from the nation-state implementing carbon legislation. A final concern of the Kyoto approach is how it has shifted focus away from Australia as the world’s largest coal exporter towards China, its primary customer….”
On this day, July 25 1997 the US Senate unanimously (95–0) passed Senate Resolution 98 (also referred to as the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.
It said – contra what the USA had already agreed when it ratified the 1992 UNFCCC – that it would sign no deals that didn’t include the developing world making cuts as well. You know, those peoples who had done nothing to cause the problem, and were already on the pointy end.
This was the at the culmination of a very well-funded and well-executed campaign by US corporate interests to reframe international environmental agreements as an attack on US sovereignty, and on the employment prospects of US workers – see for example this and this..
Why this matters.
Shows you the power of corporate mobilisations, dunnit?
What happened next?
The US negotiated a deal at Kyoto, and signed it, but it was never going to get through the Senate, even if Gore hadn’t had the 2000 election pinched from him by the Supreme Court. Then George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto altogether, in March 2001.
On this day, 25 June, 1997, (25 years ago), the Clinton Administration was making life a little difficult for Prime Minister John Howard, who was sending emissaries around the world in an effort to find allies for his “Australia should get an opt out from this Kyoto thing” position.
According to Johnston and Stokes (1997)
“As late as June 1997, the US Ambassador to Australia, Ms Genta Hawkins Holmes, stated that the US would seek “binding, realistic and achievable” targets at Kyoto; she claimed that Australia should make greater use of renewable energy sources and improve its “relatively inefficient use of hydrocarbon energy.”
Johnston, W.R. and Stokes, G. 1997. Problems in Australian Foreign Policy: January- July 1997. Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol.43(3), pp.293-300.
See also – “Shared Values Drive US-Australia Alliance”. The Australian, 12 June 1997:
“Ambassador Holmes Gives Elementary Warning on Warming”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 1997.
Why this matters.
Australian federal governments have usually played a spoiling role in international negotiations (at the behest of powerful fossil fuel companies)
What happened next?
Australia, although diplomatically isolated, got a sweet sweet deal at Kyoto (via good luck and dummy spits).
And then refused to ratify. It was helped in this, enormously, by the selection of George W. Bush as President in 2000.
On this day, 25 years ago, (June 8th 1997) US business interests went very public in their ongoing campaign against both domestic legislation but also international agreements on climate change.
The background, quickly – by 1989 US business interests were pushing back hard against (some) politicians concern about “the greenhouse effect.” They created a front group, with the typically misleading name “The Global Climate Coalition” to slow down (or ideally, from their perspective, stop) moves towards putting a price on carbon dioxide, encouraging renewables etc. They rendered the UNFCCC largely toothless, and they’d killed off President Clinton’s proposed BTU tax. But by 1997, pressure was growing. A big international meeting was to be held in December 1997, in Kyoto, at which rich countries were supposed to come up with plans not merely to stabilise emissions, but actually reduce them.
On 8 June 1997, the Business Roundtable sponsored full-page advertisements in the US press signed by 130 CEOs, arguing against mandatory emissions limitations at the forthcoming Kyoto conference. Eighty Business Roundtable members did not endorse the advertisements, however. Monsanto had led an unsuccessful effort to draft an alternative text, which acknowledged that sufficient scientific evidence had accumulated to warrant concern and industry’s engagement in developing precautionary measures. This dissenting view was brought to President Clinton’s attention at the June 1997 meeting of the President’s Council of Advisers for Science and Technology (PCAST). According to Jon Holdren, Harvard scientist and chair of the PCAST panel on energy, the President’s awareness of the minority industry faction had significant political ramifications: ‘We actually did get the President off the dime at that meeting. He mobilized an interagency task force, and started a process which eventually converged on a set of policy recommendations for Kyoto.’
Splits within the business front (you go, Monsanto, you cuddly treehuggers you!) meant that President Clinton had a little more wiggle room. For what THAT was worth. It’s worth pondering that, by the way – this often happens – different businesses/sectors, with different interests and vulnerabilities, perceive the best course of action differently. Trade associations/business groupings are often sites for those conflicts.
What happened next?
We shall come back to the Byrd-Hagel resolution soon… Kyoto got agreed, and signed. The US and Australia pulled out before ratifying. It became international law because the Russians wanted into the WTO. It was toothless, and not replaced at Copenhagen. Then in Paris… oh, blah blah blah. The. Emissions. Have. Kept. Climbing.
On April 26 1998 the New York Times ran a front page story. It began thus.
Industry opponents of a treaty to fight global warming have drafted an ambitious proposal to spend millions of dollars to convince the public that the environmental accord is based on shaky science.
Among their ideas is a campaign to recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry‘s views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that trap the sun’s heat near Earth.
An informal group of people working for big oil companies, trade associations and conservative policy research organizations that oppose the treaty have been meeting recently at the Washington office of the American Petroleum Institute to put the plan together.
Cushman, J. 1998. Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty. New York Times, 26 April, p.1
The context is that the US had signed the Kyoto Protocol (this in itself was a meaningless gesture – it only had force if ratified, and the Clinton administration had no intention of trying to get it through the Senate, especially given the previous year’s Byrd-Hagel resolution, which had insisted the US should not sign any treaty that didn’t put emissions constraints on developing countries (looking at you, China). This was of course exactly the opposite of what they’d signed off on in 1992 (Rio) and 1995 (Berlin Mandate) but hey, consistency and hobgoblins, amirite?
On one level, this was hardly “news” – anyone who had been paying any attention at all from 1989 onwards; the George Marshall Foundation got going on climate, and then the Global Climate Coalition and the “Information Clearinghouse on the Environment” (1991) and the attacks on IPCC second assessment report by various well-connected loons, and THEN the attacks on Kyoto in the run up to the meeting in 1997.
See for example Cushman’s report on 7th December 1997, during the Kyoto meeting – “Intense Lobbying Against Global Warming Treaty: U.S. Negotiators Brief Industry Groups and Environmentalists Separately in Kyoto”
Why this matters
A part of the reason (not the most important part necessarily, and not the part we can do that much about) “we” have done so little on climate change is because of staggeringly successful campaigns of predatory delay.
See also – Ben Franta’s work on the American Petroleum Institute.
On the 28th of February 2003, the Business Council of Australia announces that it no longer have a position on whether Kyoto should be ratified on it or not [see here]. There has been a vicious fight within the Business Council of Australia. And the insurgents, people like BP’s Greg Bourne, have been unable to change position but are too big to ignore.
The broader context was the Commonwealth Government of Australia, led by John Howard, had, extracted a sweet deal for Australia at the December 1997 conference in Kyoto, but then failed to ratify it. This meant carbon trading was off the agenda for Australia forestry outfits and banks. It also was a source of frustration and anger for “progressive” business. Part of Howard’s argument was that business was united behind him. This BCA fight showed it was not.
Why this matters
You get these fights behind closed doors, within business associations – indeed, one of the roles of business associations is to be a venue for these sorts of spats, so they don’t take place devant les enfants. (Business associations have many other roles, providing information to members, lobbying, governments, etc. Providing training, standards, voluntary schemes, but as a venue, they’re pretty cool.) Now, one of the problems for researchers is that you can’t use freedom of information. You can’t interview people while they’re there in the thick of it, probably. And then, of course, when you do get hold of them afterwards. they’re telling you their version, their memories have faded, et cetera. But now I’m getting into methodology and epistemology, which were not, I suspect, why you came to this website
What happened next
It would be another three years before the cracks properly started showing in the Howard regime’s defence. By then Howard had scuppered another attempt at an Emissions Trading Scheme (2004). By April 2006 though, Westpac (a bank) and others formed one of a series of short-lived issue-specific groupings that would release a glossy report, lobby a bit and then fade away…
