Tag: 1989

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Australia

August 14, 1989 – South Australia creates “interdepartmental committee on #climate change”…

On this day, 14 August 1989,

“The South Australian Government established an interdepartmental committee on climate change… to prepare a strategy addressing the greenhouse issue. The Committee’s first report, `Implications of Climate Change for South Australia’, was released in August 1990 and described the possible impacts of climate change.”

Page P.29 of Industry Commission report http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/greenhouse/15greenhouse2.pdf

Why this matters. 

It doesn’t. But I am from South Australia. So, call it a self-indulgence. These sorts of committees and “strategies” were dime a dozen in 1989.

What happened next?

There followed a hell of a lot of talking, not really much doing. But through the 2000s and into the 2010s South Australia – under the canny stewardship of Labor premiers Mike Rann and then Jay Weatherill, managed to leverage the various renewable energy targets that Howard hadn’t managed to kill off.

South Australia managed to make use of its land and wind and start to properly decarbonise its energy sector.  Housing and transport and food? Well, not quite so much. But we shall see…

btw, on this day the PPM was 351.84 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Categories
Predatory delay United States of America

Jan 30, 1989 – Je ne fais rein pour regretter… #climate jargon

On this day, January 30, in 1989, James Baker, Secretary of State for the new George HW Bush administration gives a speech propounding so-called “no regrets” actions on climate change (or “global warming” as it was also known). This means, in essence “let’s do things that we would do anyway, that will have other benefits.”

“No regrets” was an attempt to square the circle and to keep everyone more or less on the same page, but the denial campaigns that were just kicking into gear were not satisfied. And in the end, the Bush administration threatened to not attend Rio, if targets and timetables for emissions reductions by wealthy countries were included. That is very consequential, down unto this day. 

Baker has lived a very, very long life, and has continued to campaign on climate as a “climate hawk.”

See also that cartoon 

 Which even has its own wikipedia page.

But at least one person thinks (and with reasons) that we should stop using it.

See also positive externalities.

Categories
UNFCCC United Nations

Jan 27, 1989: UN General Assembly starts talking #climate

January 27 1989. On this day, the United Nations General Assembly passed the first agreement about a climate change treaty. It was propounded by Malta. And it led to a series of ministerial meetings now long forgotten in places like the Hague, Bergen, and so forth, with the second World Climate Conference in Geneva in late 1990 becoming a venue for political manouevres too. The UNFCCC process that began in January of 1991 and culminated in Rio in June of 1992. 

Why this matters? 

Small island states have been banging on about the problem of sea level rise for a long time. And they’ve been humored, patronized, condescended, ignored, whether they’re in the Caribbean, the South Pacific, or even really, the Mediterranean. 

What happened next.

INCs, Summits, 26 COPs (and counting) and countless other gabfests. If well-meaning (sometimes) talk saved the world…