On this day, July 21, 1991, a three-day international conference “Greenhouse Action for the Nineties”, co-hosted by UNEP, The Climate Institute (the US version) and the short-livedNGO “Greenhouse Action Australia” began in Melbourne. At the end of it, a declaration. It gives you a sense of the earnestness and the technological primitivism (by today’s standards) that this
“was approved at the final plenary… constructed by a consensus process, using computer projection of wordings drafted in workshops conducted throughout the conference.”
The declaration called on
Australian governments at all levels to accelerate the development of programmes to convert interim planning targets into action, with priority funding for implementation;
local government authorities to participate more actively in the global climate debate and develop sustainable cities and living areas;
industries to seize opportunities afforded in the development of new and environmentally sound technologies to meet the global climate challenge; and
individuals to take personal responsibility for life-style changes that would lead to climate stabilisation and ecological sustainability.
Specifically on energy, there was this –
The context is that, around the world – and especially in Australia (thanks to the ground-laying work of Barry Jones (Hawke’s Science Minister 1983-1990), the Commission for the Future and the CSIRO Atmospheric Research Division (Graeme Pearman, Barrie Pittock and others) – people were taking “the greenhouse effect” seriously. Greenhouse Action Australia was part of that –
People thought something could and would be done about the problem. They saw it was, unless dealt with, going to lead to horror. They started groups, they held conferences, they made declarations….
Looking back, it’s “obvious” that they underestimated
a) the difficulty of keeping an issue (and groups) “live” and vibrant.
b) the sheer ferocity and skill of the industry-led pushback and the way that it would lead to a “culture war.”
That wasn’t their fault, on the whole. The reason we are in this godawful mess is not the fault of the people who tried (though they could have tried harder, smarter – but you can always say that). The fault – and the indictments at the Hague – though we had best hurry on that score – lay elsewhere.
Why this matters.
We need to (try to) learn from past mistakes (but remember that Hegel jibe too).
What happened next
The “greenhouse effect” became old news (pushed out by the first Western military action against Iraq, and by the sense that an international treaty, signed in Rio in 1992, had ‘solved’ the problem.
But the industry figures knew it would come back, as an issue, and they made sure they were ready. By then, most of the groups that had sprung up – like Greenhouse Action Australia – had died, so the industry figures had a much easier time spreading their lies. And with the 1996 arrival of the Howard government, it got easier still. The rest is “history”…
A friend and supporter of this project has asked me to write about “carbon credits,” which are right now a ‘hot topic’ (sorry) in Australian climate politics.
What follows is not a comprehensive history, and only partly references posts that have already gone up (more are lurking in the near future). The second half is given over more to – well, why the big focus on ‘carbon credits’ – what is allowed and disallowed by that focus?
Comments very welcome, but not about the existence or severity of climate change – the time between now and the Actual Fricking Apocalypse (AFA) is short, and I don’t intend to waste even a minute of it on trolls, bots and poster-children for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Australia and economic instruments around climate change.
In 1973 (not 1971 as the Tweet says!) Treasury, responding to concerns about the “diseconomies” of economic growth, released a report.
On this day 8 June, 1971, the Australian Treasury released a report "Economic Growth: Is it Worth Having?" On page 11 and 12, it considers… “the greenhouse effect” and the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.https://t.co/8SiRbmAEVa 🧵 1/6 pic.twitter.com/8Q3Rbt3Doi
— All Our Yesterdays (@our_yesterdays) June 7, 2022
It basically wasn’t that bothered. And with hyper-inflation and all sorts of other economic mayhem, the Whitlam Government seems not to have paid attention.
So, let’s skip forward to the coming of the “Greenhouse Effect” in the late 80s – and we should always remember that thanks in part to Barry Jones (Hawke’s Science Minister) Australians were well-informed (Commission for the Future, Phillip Adams, The Greenhouse Project, Greenhouse 87, Greenhouse 88, Stephen Schneider, Barrie Pittock, Graeme Pearman etc).
In 1988, Barry Jones pointed out that a price on carbon dioxide was a reasonable economic measure. Other people were saying the same – this is uncontroversial – Pigou etc etc – you want to discourage something, you make it more expensive. “The market” then finds a way. So the story goes.
But in Australia, on climate, until 1995, the major focus was on a carbon tax rather than emissions trading. And it had advocates, beyond the Australian Conservation Foundation. And they pushed it within the “Environmentally Sustainable Development” process of 1990-91. And they lost. Or rather, the determined efforts of a growing “greenhouse mafia” (to shoot Guy Pearse’s useful formulation back before the existence of the AIGN) were successful in defeating a carbon tax. Ros Kelly, Hawke and then Keating’s Environment Minister, explicitly ruled out any price on carbon, both before and AT the Rio Earth Summit-
And was defeated, by an even more determined and sophisticated resistance.
And after this, for various reasons (mostly to do with what the Americans wanted/were willing to countenance) taxes fell away (Clinton, don’t forget, had been defeated on his BTU tax in 1994) and “emissions trading became the flavour of the month. You can see it in various Australian Treasury documents, in conferences, speeches etc.
The basic idea is you create a “market” and so its magic then… reduces emissions. Meanwhile, certifiers, bankers, lawyers all get rich.
There were two big efforts under Howard to get a national Emissions Trading Scheme going. Both were defeated – the 2000 one by Nick Minchin, the 2003 one by Howard himself. Check out Guy Pearse’s High and Dry for gory details, and also Marian Wilkinson’s The Carbon Club. And there is the work of Clive Hamilton too (esp Scorcher).
Advocates of emissions trading soldiered on. One key entrepreneur was Bob Carr (there are blog posts on this site about him coming up). At a time when all states had Labor governments, they were co-ordinating on a bottom-up emissions trading scheme. Howard was not happy.
Then, when climate change “took off” in the second half of 2006 in Australia, Kevin “I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help” Rudd latched onto climate as a wedge issue.
BUT he had to go carefully, not to scare Queensland voters.
some sort of carbon trading (he put Ross Garnaut in charge of that, while in opposition).
Howard tried to come back against this, saying he WOULD now introduce a carbon trading scheme if re-elected. But too little too late etc etc
What do we learn here? That carbon trading, carbon credits etc, are regarded as “common sense” (read Tony Gramsci on this!) as normal, reasonable and the best respectable position. Despite zero evidence that they would actually “work” at reducing emissions.
I don’t intend to go through the insane gory details of the period 2007 to 2012 (and onwards) – you have not bought me enough Cooper’s for that. But I will say this.
In early 2010, after Rudd’s “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” had failed twice, and while Rudd was being too spineless to call a double dissolution election on the “great moral challenge of our generation” the Greens proposed an interim solution, a … carbon tax. Labor ignored the proposal (hi Penny!).
So, let’s skip over the last 10 years of “carbon pricing.” Except this, from the Turnbull-Frydenberg era, may amuse…
By getting into carbon credits, you can give the appearance of wanting to do something/doing something, and getting everyone focussed on a very small/technical issue which few understand. Perfect! It makes it virtually impossible for civil society actors, with their pesky legitimacy and demands for morality and far-sightedness and courageous decisions, to be involved.
It means you don’t have to piss off those very rich people who are funding you.
That’s the political purpose/attractiveness of carbon credits, over and above any actual “efficiency”.
Two final things. What I am saying is not new, or profound. Check out
Compare it with a so-called “inefficient” tax. Which is easier to collect, offers far fewer opportunities for evasion, gaming, arbitrage, get-rich-quick-scamming. Funny how the complex stuff always wins out, eh?
What is to be done?
Oh, god, I have written about that so much. Try this.
On this day,July 20, 1989, Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, keen to surf the “environmental wave “all the way to the 1990 Federal Election, gave a much-hyped environmental statement in Wentworth, New South Wales. His wife planted a tree (it died). More importantly, the “world’s most comprehensive environmental” statement was… utterly silent on “the greenhouse effect.” Oops.
The Federal Government yesterday left the way open for Australia to become a new centre for energy-efficient processing industries but refused to give a commitment to reducing greenhouse gases through specific targets.
This was a major point of interest for Australian industry and a source of anger for the conservation movement ….
Earlier in the week, it was reported that the Treasurer, Mr Keating, had “rolled” the Minister for the Environment, Senator Richardson, over a bid to commit Australia to target reductions in greenhouse gases. ‘[by Michelle Grattan, in The Age!]
It was reported that Senator Richardson wanted the environment statement to include that Australia would aim to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2005.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s director, Mr Phillip Toyne, said: “The most crucial failing of the Commonwealth’s statement is in the area of global climatic change.”
“Instead of setting firm targets for reduction of greenhouse gases, the Commonwealth has adopted an expedient and self-interested approach which advocates that Australia may even need to increase (greenhouse gases) to accommodate growth of internationally competitive export industries.”
Dunn, R. 1989. Hawke environment statement leaves conservationists fuming.. Australian Financial Review, 21 July, p. 5.
So, on the back foot, Hawke had further fence-mending to do, and this alienated some of the anti-green Labor sorts (of which there were many).
,
Why this matters.
It’s all here – the grand-standing, the refusal to commit to cuts, the self-interested and delusional spin about increasing emissions to reduce emissions. Under Labor, and less than a year into the greenhouse issue.
What happened next?
Labor cultivated the “greenies”, dangling the prospect of an “Ecologically Sustainable Development policy process” were they to be returned to office. They were, by a very slender margin. THE ESD process happened, was trashed by the bureaucracy and is the source of some longing and regret by those who were involved.
On this day, July 19 in 1976, as drought grips the UK, US scientists are pondering.
“In any market, nervousness reflects uncertainty-and there are few things as uncertain as the weather. “We just can’t confidently predict long-range trends in climate,” says Murray Mitchell, a climatologist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Washington. Mitchell and other specialists have advanced several theories to explain why droughts occur-and they range from speculation about sunspot cycles to a possible tilting of the earth’s axis. One notion holds that man himself is altering the climate with pollution. By burning fossil fuels, the theory runs, the industrialized world adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, creating a “greenhouse effect.” The carbon dioxide traps the sun’s heat, raising temperatures on the earth’s surface. “If we’re still rolling along on fossil fuels by the end of the century,” Mitchell warns, “then we’ve had it.”
Mayer, A. (1976) A World Praying for Rain. Newsweek, July 19, page 66.
Why this matters.
Again, by the late 1970s, we knew enough…
What happened next?
By the late 1970s, the scientific reports were piling up. Carter paid a little attention. Then along came Reagan. And Thatcher…
On this day, July 18, in 1979, Senator Abraham Ribicoff asked for some advice about “synfuels.”
The context was, the Carter Administration, desperate to reduce US dependency on problematic Middle Eastern Oil (not the dictatorships – that’s fine – it’s the interruptions to supply that’s the problem) was proposing an expensive crash program to develop synthetic fuels (synfuels). These would be incredibly energy intensive to produce… Not everyone was convinced this was a good idea…
“In 1979 [Gordon] MacDonald wrote an article for the Washington Post arguing that subsidizing synthetic fuels, as proposed by the Carter administration, would be a mistake. He pointed out that synthetic fuels would produce even more CO2 than the current U.S. mix of fossil fuels. The article drew the attention of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT), who had recently been warned about the issue by West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt” (Nierenberg et al. 2010: 324)
“Although many complex factors affect the climate, it is generally thought that the result of continued carbon dioxide production will be a warming of the atmosphere “that will probably be conspicuous within the next 20 years,” the report said. “If the trend is allowed to continue, climatic zones will shift and agriculture will be displaced.”
Gordon J. MacDonald, environmental studies professor ad Dartmouth College, who is one of the authors said in an interview that large-scale use of synthetic fuels — made from coal or oil shale — could cut the time involved by half.
“We should start seeing the effect in 1990 without synthetic fuels. . . . but if you use them, the effect would be much more pronounced by 1990,” he said.
Actually, unless I am missing something, Nierenberg et al. have got this wrong – and they don’t actually cite the “article in the Washington Post,” which is pretty poor form.
What Ribicoff appears to be responding to are articles in the Post and the Times about an actual report. This was to the Council on Environmental Quality. And it isn’t just Macdonald – “ the other authors of the report were George M. Woodwell, director of the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory; Roger Revelle, a member of the National Academy of Sciences; and Charles David Keeling, professor of Oceanography of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography” (Shabecoff, 1979).
ANYWAY, that was the 11th, and this blog post is about the 18th. And here we are –
“One incident provides a small example of the work that the Academy does outside the formal structure of reports and out of public view. On July 18, 1979, even as the Charney panel was gathering at Woods Hole, the Academy’s president, Philip Handler, got a call from Senator Abraham Ribicoff. The Senator was cosponsoring a bill on synfuels, and he wanted to know the implications of greenhouse warming. Handler went to the National Research Council’s Climate Research Board, and the very next day, it produced a statement on carbon dioxide and energy policy. The statement confirmed that global warming could be a problem. The statement told Senator Ribicoff that the massive expenditures required to create a national synthetic fuels capability should not commit the nation to large-scale dependence on coal for the indefinite future. This is the first time that an Academy group issued a specific policy recommendation, ambiguous although it may be, related to global warming. Olson 2014 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4077050/
Why this matters.
We. Knew. Never forget, we knew.
What happened next?
Synfuels got killed off by Reagan, along with a lot of good stuff. And we had to wait until 1988 to wake up. A decade lost (but then, we would have pissed it against the wall, I guess).
References:
Nierenberg, N. Tshinkel, W. and Tshinkel, V. (2010) Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy: The Origins and Making of Changing Climate. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 40, Number 3, pps. 318–349. [online here]
Olson, S. (2014) The National Academy of Sciences at 150. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jun 24; 111(Suppl 2): 9327–9364.
On this day, July 18, 2012, a video of the poem “Tell Them” by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner was uploaded, as part of the London 2012 Poetry Parnassus
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet from the Marshall Islands. She is known for her poetry about climate change and its effects on her home islands in the Pacific, and has spoken at high level events such as the UN Climate Summit in 2014.
Jetnil-Kijiner doesn’t talk about climate change as a new phenomenon, but as another part of a history of violence in the Pacific. She weaves justice arguments that connect 20th century nuclear testing; militarism; rising sea levels, and forced migration.
In her poem ‘Tell Them’, recorded for Studio Revolt, she talks with love about the Marshall Islands, addressing a friend who lives elsewhere, asking them to pass on her message about the country people might not have heard of:
Show them where it is on a map Tell them we are a proud people toasted dark brown as the carved ribs of a tree stump
Tell them we are descendants of the finest navigators in the world
This message is not only one of pride and love for home, but also a warning and a call to action. Because the Marshall Islands are known outside of the Pacific. But they are known as an example, along with Tuvalu and Kiribati, of the ‘sinking islands’.
What Jetnil-Kijiner’s poetry does that is so important, is speak on behalf of islands that are so often written off as ‘doomed’, or a ‘sacrifice zone’ for a capitalist global economy, and islanders that so easily get framed as climate refugees, as if the uninhabitability of their islands is now inevitable; unpreventable.
What I argue in my own research, is that this doomed ‘extinction narrative’ tells the story as if it is already over. Like Jetnil-Kijiner, I trace a history of violence and ‘accumulation of injustices’ where the lives of islanders are considered disposable in the pursuit of colonial expansion and capitalist extraction. At the same time, this loss of life is naturalised as inevitable, due to the ‘vulnerability’ of islands and islanders, as weak and fragile peoples and unnatural places to live.
The reason that islander poets such as Jetnil-Kijiner, Yuki Kihara, and Terisa Tinei Siagatonu, and Craig Santos Perez are such important voices in climate change politics, is because they are refusing the foregone conclusion of the sinking islands extinction narrative. They offer a different way to talk about climate change politics, where the fight for mitigation is continuing, and must continue:
But most importantly you tell them we don’t want to leave we’ve never wanted to leave and that we
“in a keynote speech to business leaders [to CEDA], the Prime Minister, John Howard called for ‘realism’ on renewables. He said, ‘Renewables will play an increasing role in Australia’s energy mix, but pragmatism, rationality and flexibility also call for realistic expectations about this role for the foreseeable future. The cost of delivering low-emission electricity from renewables remains very high, with difficulties surrounding baseload power demands.’”
(Prest, 2007: 254)
Ah yes, starve renewables of funding (MRET watered down, 2004 Energy White Paper) while throwing money at fossil fuels, make the business environment so toxic for wind power that Vestas pulls out) and then hold up your hands and then say “well, renewables can’t compete with fossil fuels” (which you’ve been busy subsidising and encouraging.
Genius. )
Why this matters.
This word “realism,” eh? It’s like the word “practical”.
According to an incredibly brave anti-Nazi German, who parachuted behind the German lines in 1944 to gather intelligence and then get captured by advancing Allied troops, this is what praktisch actually means
“… the word praktisch had been a two-syllable club he’d been beaten with by fellow students and teachers and businessmen and clergy all through the nightmare years. “Stop being such a god-damned idealist! Be practical!”“Practical means I know right from wrong but I’m too fucking scared to do what’s right so I commit crimes or permit crimes and I say I’m only being practical. Practical means coward. Practical frequently means stupid. Someone is too goddamn dumb to realize the consequences of what he’s doing and he hides under practical. It also means corrupt: I know what I ought to do but I’m being paid to do something different so I call it practical. Practical is an umbrella for everything lousy people do.”
(Quote from Brendan Phibbs amazing book The Other Side of Time: a Combat Surgeon in World War II Little Brown & Co, New York (1987)
On this day, July 16, 1992, an American scientist was invited to pour scorn on the carbon dioxide theory of climate change….
CANBERRA, July 16, Reuter – An American scientist said on Thursday that there was no firm evidence of global warming or that the phenomenon was caused by humans.
Fear of global warming was being manipulated by politicians, Professor Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Australia’s National Press Club.
Reuters, 1992. US expert attacks global warming theories. Reuters News, 16 July.
Lindzen had been brought out by Brian Tucker, then the head of the CSIRO Atmospheric Research Division. Tucker had written a decent monograph for popular consumption about the “Carbon Dioxide Problem” in 1981, but was by this time jumping the shark, and after he retired would pen unhinged denialist tracts for the IPA (a particularly obnoxious Australian “think” tank).
Lindzen was not the only figure brought out in this period, by the way – the IPA and Tasman Institute were also importing “credible” Americans, in their battle against a carbon tax, and any environmental regulation.
Why this matters.
It’s that Toni Morrison line about racism as distraction, isn’t it?
What happened next?
Tucker jumped the shark. Australia didn’t get a carbon price until 2012, and then only very briefly (Thanks Tony, I bet you’re proud). Lindzen is still around, so libel laws constrain me… Here are some “third party characterisations” via Wikipedia –
On this day, 15 July, in 2005 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown announced that he had asked Sir Nicholas Stern to lead a major review of the economics of climate change, to understand more comprehensively the nature of the economic challenges and how they can be met, in the UK and globally.
Stern produced the report- released in late 2006, and this was for a while used as a “don’t worry, there’s now a report that shows business it should act, so, you know, business will defo act” kind of thing. And some nice diagrams.
Stern paid a flying visit to Australia, and the embattled Prime Minister John Howard dismissed him for being (checks notes) English. Yeah, it all got that crazy.
Why this matters.
These reports come and go. We should remember that when the next one comes along, as it soon will.
But the pictures were nice. This one got “traction.”
What happened next?
Yeah. You know what happened next. The UK Climate Change Act (2008). The stunning success that was the 2009 Copenhagen COP. The rapid decarbonisation of essential industry. The transformation of economies and societies to adapt to inevitable change, and mitigation to minimise the damage, reparations for those affected. The land of milk and honey, the sunny uplands. Er, yeah, nah.
A sequel (the body count is always higher, the deaths more elaborate) to a 2009 scientific conference, it came as the fractious public debate about an emissions trading scheme (dubbed, brilliantly, “the great big tax on everything” by the wrecking ball disguised as an Opposition Leader that was Tony Abbott) was coming to a head.
The conference was briefly marred by some Lndon La Rouche nutjobs who brandished a noose and called Hans Joachim Schellnhuber a “Nazi.” Yeah, you keep being you, guys.
