Australian signs the UNFCCC R Kelly (Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories), Australia signs UNCED climate change convention,
media release, 4 June 1992.
and
The opposition’s delegate to UNCED in 1992, for example, had criticized the Labor Government’s willingness to give away Australia’s sovereign rights and had emphasized the debilitative economic costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.48 CPD, Senate, 4 June 1992, p. 3350.
Matt McDonald, 2005 Fair Weather Friend
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 356ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that Australian political elites had been warned about climate change from the 1970s onwards, but it had only taken action when forced to and initially, for example, at The Hague in 1989 had made the right noises.
The specific context was that by the time Ros Kelly went to Rio, there had been fierce battles against doing anything substantive on climate change, and most of those battles, frankly, had already been won before December 1991, when Keating toppled Hawke. But the coup de grace was Paul Keating becoming Prime Minister and setting fire to any remaining proposals or hopes that Australia would respond adequately as part of the international effort. Keating just thought it was a load of green crap.
Keating should have been at Rio; e was the only OECD leader not to go, and he sent Kelly instead.
What I think we can learn is this: that other futures were possible, but they didn’t happen, and Paul Keating is as responsible for, frankly, the destruction of Australia, thanks to carbon dioxide build up as the more public villain, John Howard.
What happened next: Kelly continued in post for a couple more years, but was brought down by the so-called sports rorts scandal. She was married to, perhaps is married to, some guy who was at the head of Westpac and Westpac did that ridiculous case for early business action on climate change in April of 2006 the emissions climbed. The concentrations climbed, the impacts began to arrive.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Evans, has thrown doubt over a long-standing Federal Government position on greenhouse gases in a move which will alarm the business sector.
The doubts on Australia’s response to the UN Climate Change Convention were compounded by Senator Evans’ admission that Australia had recently been “rolled” on its tough stand on the Basel convention on hazardous wastes.
At a Senate Estimates Committee hearing on Tuesday [24th May], Victorian Liberal Senator Judith Troeth asked: “Has Cabinet agreed that Australia will not implement measures under the climate change convention which would damage our competitiveness, unless other countries also do so?”
Gill, P. 1994. Minister signals change of policy on greenhouse gas. The Australian Financial Review, 26 May, p.6.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the Australian Government had, initially, in 1989 made the right noises about a climate treaty, but by 1992 opposition within the Labor government had hardened. Although Australia signed up and ratified the UNFCCC, it also started looking for loopholes to avoid any real commitments. The specific context was that this is before the treaty became international law. They knew that that was coming, and they knew that there would be a Conference of the Parties, and they wanted to start getting their retaliation in first.
What I think we can learn from this. This is not “the bad guys.” This is not the evil cloven hooves, tail with a triangle on the end, horns on head Howard Government (boo, hiss!). This is that nice, cuddly, social democratic government led by Paul Keating. It’s important to remember this.
What happened next. Most of the political elite and industry fought tooth and nail against a domestic carbon tax, which would have been the thing to keep the international climate negotiations sweet. And they sent the Environment Minister, John Faulkner, to the Berlin COP without much more than promises to maybe take action at some point. There was a National Greenhouse Response Strategy by this time, but it was farcical. No one took it seriously. Ultimately then, once the next government came in, they stopped even pretending to give a shit about the UNFCCC, and played hardball, which is why they got the incredibly generous deal at Kyoto (which they still didn’t ratify). I could go on for hours.
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.
Thirty one years ago, on this day, March 21st, 1995, the Fin reports,
FEDERAL Cabinet is today expected to endorse Australia taking a tough stand – at a ministerial meeting on climate change in Berlin next week – against new measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Australia’s stance against the creation of a new protocol on greenhouse gas reduction was given a strong boost by the failure of a last-minute meeting of 26 countries held in Bonn 10 days ago to reach consensus on the issue.
Dwyer, M. 1995. Australia takes strong line against greenhouse rules. The Australian Financial Review, 21 March.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that six years previously, Australia had made all the right noises at an international conference in The Hague, but six years and a couple of 100 extra miles make all the difference.
What actually happened?
The specific context was that by 1995 the resources lobby had won all the battles on climate policy, and Australia was the Labour Party was going to fight tooth and nail against any reduction commitments.
What I think we can learn from this is that a week is a long time in politics and six years is an eternity.
What happened next. Well, it’s interesting because John Faulkner must have been sent to the Berlin COP with a set of instructions, but ultimately, for whatever reason, he agreed to the Berlin mandate. It would be fascinating to see the cables back and forth between the Australian embassy and Keating’s government and to see what Keating et al said to Faulkner when he returned.
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.
The world revolves around Washington. It was there, in May 1953, that Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass warned a scientific conference that the carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere when humans burnt ever more oil, coal and gas would heat the planet, with the impacts being obvious by the century.
It was there in November 1965 that President Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee released a report saying Plass’s concerns might well be justified.
It was there in January 1982 at another scientific meeting that at American and German scientists warned “the signs are so ominous that we must expect (a large climatic impact) and take action to avoid it.”
And it was there, on Thursday, that The Trump administration announced its intention to pull out of both the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), alongside many other organisations.
By the late 1970s the build up of carbon dioxide was attracting serious attention by ever more alarmed scientists (see, for example, the 1979-1982 CO2 Newsletter I recently uncovered). President Carter’s science advisor asked skeptical scientists to “kick the tires” on these views. The “Charney Report,” produced to meet this request said they could find no reason to doubt that if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubled, then there would be a warning of anywhere between 1.5 to 3 degrees.
The incoming Reagan administration was uninterested (or, hostile) to these concerns. By 1985 two things had changed. The scientific consensus around carbon dioxide build-up as a problem had become even firmer, and thanks to the discovery of the Ozone Hole, the credibility of atmospheric scientists was sky-high (sorry about that, but it was there and I had to use it). After a pivotal meeting in Villach, Austria scientists grabbed every alarm lever they could, and pulled. In December, Carl Sagan gave his famous, gripping, testimony, In… Washington.
Speaking to reporters after giving testimony in Washington (where else?) in June 1988, scientist James Hansen famously said“it’s time to stop waffling and say that the greenhouse effect is here.”
Well, if there HAS to be a treaty…
1989 saw a flurry of international summits, both specifically on climate, and “sustainable development” more generally. Not coincidentally, the “Global Climate Coalition”, made up of mostly but not exclusively US oil companies, automobile makers and other usual suspects (on their attacks on the IPCC, which the Trump administration is also pulling out of, see here).
As I wrote when President George HW Bush died, the US could have got in on the ground floor. He didn’t. Once the push for a treaty became inevitable, the Americans decided to make the best of it, and prevent outcomes that would be too challenging (some within the US Department of State had felt bruised over the speed of a treaty to protect the Ozone Layer, a few years earlier.)
The main sticking point for the Americans – and there were competing factions within the Bush administration, which led to some whiplash statements and negotiating positions, at least until the “skeptics” won – was that targets and timetables for emissions reductions by rich nations were not to be included in the any climate treaty. As Bush repeatedly and publicly said “American way of life is not negotiable.”
Only once the offending targets and timetables by rich countries were removed from the negotiating text did the Bush Administration agree that Bush would attend the Rio Earth Summit and sign the “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
Article 2 of that treaty makes for rueful reading now. It states that the goal is
“to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.”
Fine words butter no parsnips.
Thirty years of dummy spits
However, the idea that rich countries, which had caused the problem and were wealthy, should go first on emissions reductions could only be delayed, not defeated. The first “Conferences of the Parties”, in early 1995 ended with the Berlin Mandate, calling on rich countries to come to the 1997 COP with a plan, which ended up being held in Kyoto Protocol.. This sparked a huge pre-emptive effort against the “Kyoto Protocol” driven by the Global Climate Coalition, with other bad-faith actors adding their two cents (some will have seen the play Kyoto, about the Climate Council), leading the US Senate to vote, 95-0 in favour of a motion that said, in effect, “we’re not cutting until poor countries agree to”
The US – with help from Australia – pushed a “technology will fix it” line, but once Kyoto was ratified by enough nations to become law, in 2005 (a quid pro quo with Russia, which wanted World Trade Organisation membership), then the US had to re-engage.
Famously at the 2008 G8 meeting Bush said – revealingly – “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”
The 2009 “last chance to save the world” meeting at Copenhagen ended in disarray and the next five years saw the pieces of the dropped vase were glued back together in time for the Paris Agreement, which managed not to mention the dread words “fossil fuels.”
Trump announced in 2017 that he would pull out of the Paris Agreement. That man Biden from 1986 re-entered in 2021, and Paris, and introduced huge incentives for “clean tech” (renewable energy and other more dubious ventures, such as direct air capture under the “Inflation Reduction Act and other pump-priming schemes. Although the IRA should have made big business happy, they decided not to try to defend it in the face of Trump’s obvious hostility.
And now this. A couple of random observations;
As the costs pile up, and reality becomes harder and harder to ignore
The Trump administration is not doing what is in the long-term interest of American capital, which could have made more money via Biden’s IRA. While there was a “logic” to anti-Kyoto activity, this anti-climate crusade seems far more ideological
What next?
Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
IF the US goes ahead and pulls out (and there’s little reason to believe they won’t – their claims should be taken both literally and seriously) then several things happen.
There will be an audible sigh of relief from Australia – especially Adelaide – that they lost out on hosting the next COP.
The various academics who critique the whole UNFCCC process as not fit for purpose will try (and sometimes fail) to keep from saying “I told you so.”
There will be a blizzard of academic papers on “multilateralism” and bilateral deals between states, with the focus switching to what cities and technologies can do.
People invested in the COP process will insist it continues, and say the role is to keep the US seat warm for the glorious day in 2029 when a Democratic president restores “order” and “sanity.”
Regardless of what happens, we should remember the following
When Gilbert Plass made his warning, humans (mostly in the West) were pumping out about 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 314ppm
When the UNFCCC was agreed, emissions were about 23 billion tonnes and the CO2 level was 355ppm
Today, despite all the pledges, all the renewables and so forth, we are pumping out about 40 billion tonnes, and the CO2 in the atmosphere is 428ppm, and galloping upwards.
More emissions means more CO2 hanging around in the atmosphere. More CO2 means more heat in the Earth System, means more extreme weather events and – between them – a remorseless rise in temperatures, with all that that entails.
“The collapse of civilisation and the natural world is on the horizon, Sir David Attenborough has told the UN climate change summit in Poland.
“The naturalist was chosen to represent the world’s people in addressing delegates of almost 200 nations who are in Katowice to negotiate how to turn pledges made in the 2015 Paris climate deal into reality.
“As part of the UN’s people’s seat initiative, messages were gathered from all over the world to inform Attenborough’s address on Monday. “Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” he said. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 409ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Attenborough had been slow to acknowledge the carbon dioxide problem (see 2006 piece by George Monbiot).
The specific context was that with the IPCC’s 1.5 degree report, and the Thunberg school strikes, and XR’s “declaration of rebellion”, it was all systems go for climate doom.
What I think we can learn from this – “words words words” as Hamlet would have it.
What happened next – Attenborough kept making documentaries. The emissions, at a global level, kept climbing. So did atmospheric concentrations and temperature. We are fubarred.
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.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, November 19th, 2009,
‘If we are to tackle climate change in the years after Copenhagen, it is clear we will need to secure change of an unprecedented scale. The change needs to be very big…. In the United Kingdom we have pledged in law to cut our emissions by 80 per cent. That means we need our electricity and transport systems and homes to be near zero carbon. So we need a dramatic increase in renewable energy – we are planning for a six-fold increase by 2020.’
Ralph Miliband Lecture, 19 November 2009,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 387ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the British state had started making all the right noises about climate change from about 2005 (Gleneagles declarations etc etc). There had been the bipartisan “Climate Change Act” of 2008.
The specific context was – Ed was about to go off to Copenhagen, where we were all going to save the world.
What I think we can learn from this – what was that Hamlet said? “Words words words”.
And the success stories, like offshore wind? They happen by accident. Then, the stuff that might reduce energy emissions, i.e. free solar, that happens because Chinese manufacturing capacity is overbuilt. Oh, the ironies.
What happened next- Copenhagen failed. Ed beat his brother David to the leadership of the Labour Party, by the narrowest of margins. Ed then lost the 2015 election, but is now Starmer’s energy guy. Points for tenacity, I guess.
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.
”Eighteen years ago, on this day, November 18th, 2006,
COP 12/CMP 2 took place between November 6 and 17, 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya. At the meeting, BBC reporter Richard Black November 18 coined the phrase “climate tourists” to describe some delegates who attended “to see Africa, take snaps of the wildlife, the poor, dying African children and women”. Black also noted that due to delegates’ concerns over economic costs and possible losses of competitiveness, the majority of the discussions avoided any mention of reducing emissions. Black concluded that was a disconnect between the political process and the scientific imperative.[16]
And, to quote Pulp’s Common People “everybody hates a tourist”.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the COP process had always attracted protests (see this piece I wrote ten years ago) and “tourists”.
The specific context was that it had seemed dead in the water, with Kyoto ratification stalled between 2001 (when Cheney-Bush pulled out) and 2005 (when the Russians saved the day, in exchange for WTO membership), but now the show was back on the road.
What I think we can learn from this is that the whole thing is a jamboree, and of late has been taken over by the fossil fuel gang.
What happened next – at the following COP, in Bali, a “roadmap to Copenhagen” was agreed. Yeah, that went well…
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.
Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, November 14th, 1997,
The Federal Government is growing concerned about the threat of trade sanctions against Australia should it refuse to sign the global deal aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the world conference on climate change in Kyoto next month.
According to a confidential Australian Government briefing paper in the hands of The Australian Financial Review, the Government is seeking to have the World Trade Organisation treaty override any agreement reached by nations signing the United Nations’ Climate Change Convention that aims to significantly curb CO emissions, which many believe cause global warming.
“Australia’s proposed language also sends a message to parties that efforts to include trade measures against parties as possible penalties for non-compliance would be subject to strict disciplines,” the briefing paper says.
More specifically, the paper proposes that the Kyoto agreement should “not derogate from the rights and obligations of parties under existing international agreements and, in particular, shall not derogate from the provisions of the agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation or affect the rights and obligations of members of the WTO”.
An official has commented in handwriting beside Australia’s proposed text: “This is the most powerful safeguard we can devise to preclude or make it very difficult for parties to use the protocol to invoke trade sanctions on non-parties or non-complying parties who might very well be energy exporters [and] exporters of energy-intensive products.”
While the official Australian position is that it wants to play a leading role in the deliberations over the climate change convention, the briefing paper is a further sign that Australia is preparing the ground for opting out of the Kyoto agreement.
McCathie, A. 1997. Australia heating up over trade threat. The Australian Financial Review, November 14, p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 364ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Australia had been a foot-dragger or worse on climate negotiations for several years now.
The specific context was Prime Minister John Howard was trying to get other nations to agree Australia was exceptional and should not be under the cosh for emissions reductions at the upcoming Kyoto conference.
Here he was clearly thinking about plan-B, in case things went wrong at Kyoto.
What I think we can learn from this – everyone “venue shops”.
What happened next – Australia got its sweet sweet deal at Kyoto. Still refused to ratify. Meanwhile, the WTO became instrumental in climate policy in an unusual way – In 2004 Russia agreed to ratify Kyoto in (tacit) exchange for membership of the WTO.
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.
Twenty nine years ago, on this day, July 18th, 1996,
COP 2, Geneva, Ministerial Declaration was noted (but not adopted) July 18, 1996, COP 2 took place in July 1996 in Geneva, Switzerland. Its Ministerial Declaration was noted (but not adopted) July 18, 1996, and reflected a U.S. position statement presented by Timothy Wirth, former Under Secretary for Global Affairs for the U.S. State Department at that meeting, which:
1. Accepted the scientific findings on climate change proffered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its second assessment (1995);
2. Rejected uniform “harmonized policies” in favor of flexibility;
3. Called for “legally binding mid-term targets”.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 363ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the negotiations for a climate treaty, which got underway officially in early 1991, were hampered from the start by US intransigence on any strong action (yes, the Republicans were ideological about this, but there was also the industrial interests, for example the Global Climate Coalition).
The specific context was that at the COP1 meeting in Berlin, the rich nations had agreed to turn up at the third meeting (some point in 1997) with plans for actual cuts. This was causing all sorts of mayhem….
What I think we can learn from this is that it’s easy-ish to make promises. But the closer you get to having to deliver on them, the more awkward and angry everyone gets….
What happened next – the Kyoto meeting led to an utterly inadequate set of promises, which didn’t even get enacted because the US and then Australia pulled out. The Kyoto Protocol finally became law in 2005 when Russia joined, as part of a quid pro quo for World Trade Organisation membership….
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.
Thirty four years ago, on this day, June 23rd, 1991,
At the start of the Geneva session, a German delegate complained that ‘during the last round of negotiations we used up a great deal of time discussing procedural questions and we were still unable to find answers to all of them “ (quoted in ECO, 20 June 1991). Eco noted that the climate negotiations finally started on 23 June, four days after the session opened. (ECO, 24 June 1991). Page 55 Paterson, M (1996)
On 23 June 1991, less than a year away from the Earth Summit in Rio where the final Climate Change Convention was supposed to be signed, talks finally began on the treaty itself. The first attempt to identify a route to consensus came from the Japanese delegation. They called their new idea “pledge-and-review”. It aimed to try and bridge the gap between the White House, with its ‘Just say no’ approach and the rest of the industrialized world, which sought legally binding commitments on emission, with specific targets and timetables. Under pledge-and-review, states would sign a convention devoid of any commitments at the Earth Summit. They would pledge what they could in the way of targets, and agree to review their commitments, and in the implementation of those commitments, at an interval to be agreed.
Page 39
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.7ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the US had been blocking negotiations with adamantine intransigence. The Japanese proposed a way forward, as did others.
What I think we can learn from this is that the “Pledge and Review” that we have – i.e. the Paris “Agreement” was always going to fail. People knew it was going to fail when it was first proposed in 1991.
What happened next – the US opposition continued, and eventually the rest of the world blinked – the UN treaty signed in Rio had no targets, no timetables for emissions reductions by rich countries. And guess what – emissions kept climbing, atmospheric concentrations kept climbing, temperatures went up, sea levels went up. Who knew?
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.