Thirty six years ago, on this day, July 16th, 1989,
33. There is growing awareness throughout the world of the necessity to preserve better the global ecological balance. This includes serious threats to the atmosphere, which could lead to future climate changes. We note with great concern the growing pollution of air, lakes, rivers, oceans and seas; acid rain, dangerous substances; and the rapid desertification and deforestation. Such environmental degradation endangers species and undermines the well-being of individuals and societies.
Decisive action is urgently needed to understand and protect the earth’s ecological balance. We will work together to achieve the common goals of preserving a healthy and balanced global environment in order to meet shared economic and social objectives and to carry out obligations to future generations.
Economic Declaration (16/07/1989) – G7/G20 Documents Database
Paris Declaration!!! At G7 meeting.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 353ppm. 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 G7 meetings had been happening since the mid-1970s. At the Tokyo meeting, in 1979, carbon dioxide build-up had even gotten a mention in the final communique, and then again in 1985 (merely as “climatic change”).
The specific context was that the climate issue had broken through, finally, in mid-1988, and everyone was mouthing the platitudes… The G7 was no exception.
What I think we can learn from this is that we had a “Paris Agreement” a good twenty five years before the 2015 one. And they were both essentially meaningless. At a species level, we have failed to do anything about climate change.
What happened next – the climate negotiations did not begin in earnest (after serious opposition from the US) until 1991. A proposal, led by the French, for targets and timetables for emissions reductions by rich countries to be in the text of the treaty, was eventually defeated: Bush said he would not even attend the “Earth Summit” if it was in there. Everything since then has been been a failed attempt to fix that problem.
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.
Also on this day:
July 16, 1990 – Canberra Times gives denialist tosh a platform
