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, June 10, 1986, climate scientist Robert Watson told United States Senators the grim news…
“I believe global warming is inevitable. It is only a question of the magnitude and the timing “
The context was that in October 1985 there had been a crucial meeting of scientists in Villach, Austria. It had been sponsored by the World Meteorological Organisation, the United Nations Environment Program and the ICSU. The scientists had realised that predicted warming was likely to come harder and faster than they had been assuming. They started alerting politicians who were willing to listen (some of whom had already been engaged). Crucially, this included Republican senators (the party had completely swigged the Kool Aid yet).
“More members of Congress became interested in climate change following Senate hearings of June 1986. In these hearings a NASA scientist, Robert Watson, testified that `I believe global warming is inevitable. It is only a question of the magnitude and the timing ‘(SCEPW, 1986b, p. 22). The statement was picked up by major papers such as the New York Times and Washington Post briefly elevating what had been a relatively obscure scientific topic to national prominence. Administration officials testified before the Senate committee the next day. In general, the officials from EPA, Commerce, NASA, State, and Energy tried to downplay the significance of Watson’s comments, which only served to bring them into sharper relief. Following the testimony of the administration officials Senator John Chafee summarized the hearings as follows: `It was the scientists yesterday who sounded the alarm, and it was the politicians, or the government witnesses, who put the damper on it’ (SCEPW, 1986b, pp. 183}184). Chafee’s comments were an accurate characterization of the developing relationship between many in Congress who sought to heed the scientists’ alarm and those in the executive branch who tried to dampen it.”
(Pielke, 2000: 16-7)
See also Washington Post retrospective in 2016 very very explicit issue linkage – Pomerance acting as policy entrepreneur linking issues, at behest of Curtis Moore- see Nathaniel Rich Losing Earth
Why this matters
Good to know the scientists were speaking out before the magic years of 1988.
And that the administration was trying to gag them.
Useless, but good.
What happened next?
The issue stopped being so easily containable in the summer of 1988.
But the policy – of a global treaty – that was fought over, obviously. And as Leonard Cohen warned us “everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.”
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.
So, a slightly different take on “All Our Yesterdays” – I will look at three events that occurred on June 4, but, as per the title, across seven years. These nicely summarise the arc of concern, hedging to effective resistance to action.
First up – in the first flush of newfound concern about The Environment, a “get together” when such satellite link-ups were relatively rare (but by no means unheard of).
Anon, 1989. Environment focus of global TV show. Canberra Times, 4 June p. 3.
SYDNEY: Australians play a part in a television program on the environment to be seen live in almost 100 countries today. Our Common Future, based in New York, will bring celebrities and world leaders together to spearhead the push towards environmental awareness.
The New York Times was lukewarm at best –
The oddest, most incoherent global television broadcast since the 1989 Academy Awards took place on Saturday afternoon. ”Our Common Future,” a five-hour program relayed to about 100 countries, was intended to create awareness of environmental problems and to urge global cooperation. For five hours, broadcast live from Avery Fisher Hall with material from the Soviet Union, England, Australia, Poland, Norway and Brazil, the program mixed musical performances with pro-environmental statements, a format akin to Live Aid, with which it shared a producer (Hal Uplinger) and director (Tony Verna).
Unlike Live Aid, the program was not a benefit, and it was less a live concert than a staged event; the audience was largely an invited one, and many of the performances were on tape. It was also considerably lower in star power than Live Aid, with Sting, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Diana Ross, Joni Mitchell, R.E.M. and Kenny Loggins as its best-known names – although an African tawny eagle stole the show when it flew from the stage to roost on the second balcony.
And three years later, after a global treaty was “negotiated”, we have this –
“Australian signs the UNFCCC Roz Kelly (Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories), Australia signs UNCED climate change convention, media release, 4 June 1992.
Australia’s new Prime Minister, Paul Keating couldn’t be arsed to go (almost all other world leaders attended). Meanwhile, the Liberal National Party were already throwing shade –
“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
And, sure enough, once they were in charge again, this –
Australian industry has applauded the Federal Cabinet’s decision yesterday to oppose a targets and timetables approach to international climate change negotiations, made on the eve of World Environment Day today.
The Howard Government’s position effectively reaffirms that taken by the Keating government and its minister for the Environment, Senator John Faulkner.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Alexander Downer, the Minister for the Environment, Senator Robert Hill, and the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Warwick Parer, said in a joint statement: “Australia will insist that the outcome of current international negotiations on climate change safeguards Australia’s particular economic and trade interests.”
Mr John Hannagan, chairman of the Australian Aluminium Council’s major policy group, said industry welcomed this statement, “reinforcing its no-regrets position as its negotiating stand at the forthcoming Geneva talks”.
Callick, R. 1996. Coalition backs industry on climate change. The Australian Financial Review, 5 June, p.2.
Why this matters.
These things follow a pattern – excited/exuberant “we can fix this,” (1989) then some sort of legislation (usually quite weak – 1992), then the pushback even from that…
What happened next?
We went through more waves of excitement, legislation, pushback. On a couple of occasions (2006-2009, 2018-2021). It is connected to what I call “the emotaycle.”
On this day, June 2nd, 1989 a good article with a bad title was published, summarising then current stances on “the greenhouse threat”.
Hansen, via his testimony almost a year previously, had become one target for those who were seeking to dismiss long-standing ‘greenhouse’ concerns.
Hansen had already been on the receiving end of an attempt to silence him by the Bush Administrations OMB, which had been revealed in May by Senator Al Gore. Hansen had been on the receiving end of this sort of pressure in 1981, and it would continue throughout the rest of his career. That is what happens when you have some inconvenient truths to tell…
Why this matters.
We need to remember that titles are rarely chosen by the author, and that just as you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, an article might be more than what is suggested or (oftentimes) less – the so-called ‘bait and switch’.
What happened next?
Hansen kept doing what a decent scientist should do – researching, reporting on their findings, refusing to be shut up.
On this day, June 1, 1992, President George H.W. Bush, says that a habitable planet is an extremist demand.
“We cannot permit the extreme in the environmental movement to shut down the United States. We cannot shut down the lives of many Americans by going extreme on the environment.”
George Bush at UNCED, quoted in the Guardian, 1 June 1992 –
Q Is one of the problems with this, and the entire energy field, American lifestyles? Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?
MR. FLEISCHER: That’s a big no. The President believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.
Why this matters.
What is sacred is beyond discussion. It’s a classic “de-agendaising” technique, where if you push the issue, you cast yourself into the outer darkness.
What happened next?
The USA government ratified the UNFCCC at the Rio Earth Summit, and has spent the last 30 years rendering it meaningless, and basically doing the bidding of various fossil fuel lobbies (yes, it is more complicated than that, but not MUCH more complicated).
On this day, June 1st 1965, Tom Lehrer sang his song “Pollution” at the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco, as part of his “That was the week that was” gig.
Lehrer had basically “retired” from his tours, when asked to write topical songs for a weekly satirical TV show called “That was the week that was” (the songs were brought together in an album called “That Was The Year That Was”).
The song, picking up on growing concerns about air, water, noise and – well – everything – pollution, contains priceless lyrics such as
If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!
YEAR: 1965 Lehrer singing “Pollution” at the hungry i
Columbia University geologist Wallace S. Broecker May 31 said increased reliance on coal for energy might over the next 50 years raise the average temperature on the earth by four degrees fahrenheit. Broecker’s prediction rested on the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: CO2 was transparent to incoming sunlight, “but somewhat opaque to outgoing earthlight” (sunlight reflected back out into space, where its heat would be dissipated). Carbon dioxide was produced by coal combustion; burning one ton of coal produced three tons of CO2.
“Coal impact on climate questioned” Facts on File World News Digest July 2, 1977
Four degrees Fahrenheit is just over two degrees Celsius. So, Broecker was wrong, but probably only by a couple of decades…
Broecker had been the first scientist to use the phrase “global warming” in the title of a scientific article. He raised the alarm, kept raising the alarm (see here for his 1980 letter to Democratic senator Paul Tsongas).
Why this matters.
Again, we knew, long before 1988. But it’s a far-off threat, of which we know little, so, you know, life goes on.
What happened next?
We kept on pretending there wasn’t really a problem – or rather, our lords and masters did. Some of us started panicking.
On this day, May 30, 1990, Australian band “Midnight Oil” held an impromptu concert in New York, outside Exxon’s HQ. You can see the footage here
Exxon were villain du jour because of a certain carelessness the previous spring in Alaska.
We didn’t know then, but Exxon already had a solid ten years of climate knowledge under its belt – they knew that their product would wreck the planet, but why, erm, rock the boat?
You might also like this song, by “Max Q”
Why this matters.
Culturally, we can resist. Economically, persistently, strategically? Not so easy.
What happened next?
Midnight Oil kept burning. They stopped while Peter Garrett, lead singer tried to change the system from within. Have since resumed.
Exxon? Oh, Exxon kept up their boundless love and generosity for future generations by, you know, funding denialist outfits, getting IPCC chairs sacked – the usual.
On this day, March 23, 1977, Jimmy Carter, then President of the United States, announced that he was gonna look into the future.
”I am directing the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State, working in cooperation with … other appropriate agencies, to make a one-year study of the probable changes in the world’s population, natural resources, and environment through the end of the century.”
President Jimmy Carter May 23,1977
This finally came out in mid-1980 as the “Global 2000” report, when he was a dead duck (rather than a lame one, which came later).
The Global 2000 report gave us the phrase “sustainable development” and, of course, had a section on carbon dioxide.
This was, after all, after the Charney Report, after the First World Climate Conference and so on.
Exxon knew, we knew.
Why this matters.
States had been doing these sorts of forecasting things for a few years. This one could have mattered. Oh well.
What happened next?
Carter was thoroughly blasted out of office in November 1980 (with an independent splitting the “progressive” vote), and Ronald Reagan became the meat puppet representative of a whole lot of ever-so-slightly regressive guys, who did everything they could to slow down the awareness of/consensus around the “carbon dioxide problem” as it was then called.
