Tag: 1990

Categories
AFrica

May 2, 1990 – Nairobi Declaration on Climatic Change

Thirty four years ago, on this day, May 2nd, 1990, another declaration…,

See here for pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354.5ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there were ongoing meetings about climate and “sustainable development” in the aftermath of both the Brundtland Report and the 1988 upsurge. There was to be a meeting in Bergen, about sustainable development. And here we have Africans saying, “hey, maybe there should be nothing about us without us”.

What we can learn is that these sorts of declarations are being made all the time. My other favourite is the Male Declaration of November 18, 1989,  about sea level rise, and then forgotten. Now, all that’s remembered is what the rich largely white nations said or agreed to do (and then didn’t do).

What happened next, the emissions kept rising. Every so often there were more declarations and we’re here we are 

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.

References

1990 Nairobi meeting with Woods Hole folks http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Nairobi_Declaration_on_Climatic_Chan.html?id=MRfPAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y

Paterson 1996 page 39

Also on this day: 

May 2, 2009 – Australian Liberals warned of wipe-out if seen as “anti-climate action” #auspol

May 2, 2012 – CCS is gonna save us all. Oh yes.

May 2, 2019 – Committee on Climate change report on net zero by 2050

Categories
Australia

March 3, 1990 – The Science Show on the “backlash to Greenhouse warnings”

 Thirty four years ago, on this day, March 3rd, 1990, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio programme “The Science Show”, covered climate politics.

The Science Show [Episode 702] – 1990 Anzaas Congress. The 59th Annual Anzaas Congress Was Held In Hobart, February 14-16th 1990; Climate Change In The Past, A Human Response.” ;Greenhouse Modelling; Backlash To Greenhouse Warnings; Politics Of Greenhouse Science; Ozone Hole/Ozone Layer; Silly Abstract. A Comedy Piece; Coral Reefs And The Greenhouse Effect; International Environmental Policy.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.75ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was still banging on about climate change all the time (it would only start to go away when Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq, on 2 August 1990). And on the Science Show, they needed to do the classic, “both sides of the argument.” Denialists had figured that out. And people like John Daly had realised that if you wrote a book (The Greenhouse Trap) and then weren’t invited to discuss it on the Science Show, you could cry censorship. So this is hijacking journalistic ethics and integrity for your own purposes – ”balance as bias” according to the boykoff boys.

What we learn is that the denialists have been astonishingly effective at what they do. And institutions have been unable to successfully repel or expel them and protect, well, future generations. 

What happened next? 

The denialists kept denying. That gave aid and comfort to the greed heads and thickos within the Labour party and the Liberal National Party and indeed the economic apparatus. And so Australia never took strong climate action. And here we are 30 years later with the consequences beginning to pile up. Happy days.

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: 

March 3, 1990 –  “A greenhouse energy strategy : sustainable energy development for Australia” launched … ignored #auspol

March 3, 1990 – Energy efficiency could save billions a year, Australian government told (says ‘whatevs’).

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

February 1, 1990 – Australian Financial Review ponders carbon tax… (via FT)

Thirty four years ago, on this day, February 1st, 1990, an article about possible carbon taxes from the Financial Times (London) was syndicated in the Australian Financial Review (aka “The Fin”).

“Drastic measures to combat global atmospheric pollution caused by burning carbon fuels were urged yesterday by the International Energy Agency.”

Anon. 1990. Carbon Fuel Tax May Limit Pollution Levels. Australian Financial Review, 2 February.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.1ppm. As of 2024 it is 422.3ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that at Nordwijk in November of 1989, nations had agreed to keep talking about talking about negotiating a climate treaty. There were other meetings coming up. And the International Energy Agency was sticking its oar in with the suggestion of carbon taxes and pricing mechanisms. Also there was a federal election pending in Australia, the climate issue was very salient. 

What we learn is that debates about carbon pricing have been shaped by prestigious powerful – or prestigious, at least – outfits like the IEA in ways that I didn’t fully understand for my PhD thesis, but here we are. 

What happened next, Bob Hawke narrowly won the March 1993 election with small g. green votes, and was therefore obliged to follow through with this idea of ecologically sustainable development. 

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: 

Feb 1, 2007- Jeremy Grantham slams Bush on #climate

February 1, 1978 – US TV show MacNeill Lehrer hosts discussion about climate change

Feb 1 2023 – Interview with Russell Porter, Australian documentary maker

Categories
Renewable energy

December 24, 1990 – Australia as renewable energy superpower

Thirty three years ago, on this day, December 24, 1990, a letter appears in the Canberra Times… 

Renewable energy 

YOUR excellent report from Washington, DC, presenting evidence that renewable energy could substitute for coal, oil and gas in the 21st century (CT, December 17) needs to be supplemented with some information about the Australian situation… Commonwealth support for renewable energy has been very weak.

Canberra Times 24th December 1990

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122332903/13000347

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was talking about moving away from fossil fuels moving towards renewables. Would it be possible? Over what time-scale? etcetera 

Except when they weren’t and they were trying to sit on things, which is what the Australian government eventually took to doing.

What I think we can learn from this

The Politics of technology R&D – what gets funded, what doesn’t, by who, with what end-goals is always really interesting, well usually.

The crucial thing is this is Australia which could have been ahead of the game on wind power solar geothermal hydrogen you name it. But the problem was we had so much damn coal and natural gas, and the people who owned those resources also, in effect, owned the state and the policymaking process and have won all the big battles.

What happened next is we didn’t do that “clean energy transition.” We may yet in the future who knows, but it will be too little too late, by definition.

The age of consequences is beginning and the dildo of consequences never arrives lubed.

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

Categories
International processes Swtizerland

November 6, 1990 – Second World Climate Conference underway

Thirty three years ago, on this day, November 6, 1990, the consequential bits of the “Second World Climate Conference” began in Geneva. That is to say, the politicians turned up (the scientists had been hard at work for some days already).

[see here for a Conversation article about protests etc]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the first world climate conference in Geneva, in February of 1979 had been pretty much scientists and a few policy makers. You can read various accounts of it. But the short version is that those who were wanting a bold statement that said “carbon dioxide is a real problem and we need to start taking action now” were unable to overcome the veto of people like John Mason, head of the UK Meteorological Office who was a long term climate skeptic. 

The following ten years of science and advocacy had pushed climate onto the agenda. The second world climate conference had been pushed back six months so that it could suit political needs because this was no longer purely a scientific endeavour. Since 1985, new climate scientists had been trying to engage policymakers directly and urgently or beginning in late 1985.

The existence of the conference had forced the question of emissions reductions targets onto the table, because no politician wanted to get booed and heckled by their colleagues and the media. So, for example, while Australia had come up with a provisional or Interim Planning Target, as it was called, very few other nations had. There were protests, organised by Greenpeace, very polite, as the Swiss had it, (see my Conversation article). 

What I think we can learn from this

Want to shake loose the bureaucracy? Engineer events as action-forcers I guess? Or rather decision-forcers The action will depend on implementation, which may or may not happen….

What happened next

At the beginning of 1991, pretty much simultaneous with the push to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait the climate negotiations finally started. 

There was a third world climate conference, but it was a denialist event in Moscow, and no one speaks of it… 

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.

Categories
Agnotology Denial United Kingdom

November 3, 1990 – more smears about the IPCC, in the Financial Times 

Thirty three years ago, on this day, November 3, 1990, the normally sane Financial Times published a brain fart of an article

Thomas, David (1990) The cracks in the greenhouse theory. Financial Times 3 November

There were claims that the IPCC organisers had deliberately excluded strong dissenters, such as Richard Lindzen, Hugh Elsaesser and Fred Singer, from participating in the IPCC. One unnamed scientist went so far as to claim that the supporters of the greenhouse theory ‘behave like Hitler’ by conspiring to prevent critics from publishing their conclusions in leading scientific journals (quoted in Thomas, 1990.)

Paterson, M (1996) Page 45

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the IPCC’s first assessment report had been delivered two months earlier. Since then, there had been fierce contestation of it. And this article in the FT was part of the push back ahead of the second World Climate Conference in Geneva and the imminent start of the climate negotiations. So the FT was wanting to cater to its various members, readers, some of whom would want to doubt awkward physical realities.

Eleven months earlier, Forbes had run a similar piece of nonsense (Link).

What I think we can learn from this

I am not suggesting that the Global Climate Coalition or the British Coal board phoned up the editor of the FT and ordered him to order an underling to write this. That’s not how power works. That’s not how the world usually works, 99.99 times out of 100. 

What happened next

The FT stopped being quite so fucking useless on climate change. It’s currently quite good (especially when they publish my letters).

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.

Categories
IPCC Science

November 3, 1990 – money for independent climate scientists? Yeah, nah

Thirty three years ago, on this day, November 2, 1990, scientists who had been involved in the pre-IPCC “Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases” were trying to see if they could get funding (they couldn’t, and the caravan had moved on).

“In November 1990 he wrote to WMO asking that ‘the AGGG should be either abolished or established on a formal financial basis with a clearly defined role’ (Dooge, 1990). There was no response and the AGGG was neither abolished nor given a continuation of its mandate. In Dooge’s words ‘it was death by starvation’.”

In Agrawala, S. (1999). Early science–policy interactions in climate change: lessons from the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases. Global Environmental Change, 9(2), 157-169.
Chicago

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the IPCC had released its first report in August 1990 (it had been preemptively criticised by Greenpeace as inadequate). It wasn’t clear that the IPCC would necessarily go on and on as we know – so this letter about continuing to fund the AGGG was not as bizarre as it seems

The AGGG had been set up after the pivotal meeting in Villach in September 1985, as an attempt to get decent scientific information under everyone’s noses. It’s the kind of thing that pissed off the Departments of State and Energy and got the Americans kiboshing things, to control process.

What I think we can learn from this

We should remember that the IPCC was a compromise. It has obviously done great work, but we should never forget that it was created the way it was because that’s what the Americans wanted. And on that occasion the Americans were able to prevail…

What happened next

 The AGGG died for lack of money, and the existence of a big shiny alternative.

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.

Categories
Australia

October 16, 1990 – Green groups say yes to “Ecologically Sustainable Development”

Thirty three years ago, on this day, October 16, 1990, some big green groups said “yes” to a policy process. It’s more significant than it sounds…

“The Federal Government’s sustainable development consultations received a fillip yesterday with the long-awaited decision by three of the four main environment groups to take part in industry working groups.

However, the three groups – the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace and the Worldwide Fund for Nature – refused to take part in the forestry working group on the grounds that it duplicated a Resource Assessment Commission inquiry into the industry.

The fourth main green group, the Wilderness Society, decided not to take part in the working groups, saying the Government’s recent environmental decisions showed it was unlikely to put ecologically sustainable development ahead of “conventional economic growth”.”

Garran, R. 1990. Green groups to join govt inquiry. Australian Financial Review, 17 October. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

In order to win the March 1990 Federal election Labor had had to cuddle up to green organisations, and promise them that it would be different next time, that the green organisations would be invited into the room with the big boys who were making the decisions. The “ecologically sustainable development policy making” process was part of this big picture but obviously that came with risks for everyone…

What I think we can learn from this

Is that for green groups there is an eternal dilemma – if they engage closely with state policy-making processes they can use up their time energy and credibility on something that goes nowhere, but if they refuse and are the perpetual outsiders than the foundation money is less forthcoming, ambitious people go elsewhere because aren’t you trying to change the system from within. “If you’re not trying to change the system from within, well what’s the point of you?” say middle class people who don’t understand how power works.

But then maybe they do, maybe without these sorts of efforts – even though they often go wrong – we would be in an even worse position? Who knows…

What happened next

The green groups went in, and the ESD process went tits up.  And this was most evident in the middle of 1992 when a planned two-day conference ended in farce. New Prime Minister Paul Keating kicked ESD into the long grass. And it is mentioned ruefully now if at all; you have to be quite old to have any history with it…

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.

Categories
Australia

October 13, 1990/97 – Ros Kelly defends the Interim Planning Target vs Australia does nothing

Thirty three years ago, on this day, October 13, 1990, Australian Environment Minister Ros Kelly defended the decision taken to have loopholes in the climate change target…

Twenty six years ago, on this day, October 13, 1997, Australia was busy saying “yeah, nah” to the world…

The Minister for the Environment, Ros Kelly, defended the Government’s conditional greenhouse target, saying an unqualified one would have been “irresponsible”.

On Thursday, Cabinet agreed to a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent on 1988 levels within the next 15 years.

However, no action will be taken that might adversely affect Australian international competitiveness.

Lamberton, H. 1990. Kelly defends greenhouse ‘conditions’. Canberra Times, 13 October, p 3

Greenhouse countdown

The temperature is rising in the debate over greenhouse and Australia is coming under increasing pressure to declare its hand ahead of the Kyoto summit. A lot is at stake, writes Lenore Taylor.

Every world leader John Howard speaks to about greenhouse gas emissions wants him to answer one question. What can Australia do?

Bill Clinton asked him at the White House. Tony Blair asked him at 10 Downing Street. Neither got an answer.

Australia has invested enormous diplomatic and political energy explaining what it can’t do – and according to the Government it definitely can’t agree to any absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

But it has failed to say what it can do.

Taylor, L. 1997. The heat is on. Australian Financial Review, 13 October, p. 16. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354/363ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was in 1990 the Australia Federal Government had made a promise with tricksy caveats that had kept its domestic allies – or people that needed to pretend they agreed – on side and allowed for the international reputation not to be too much in the toilet. Seven years is a long time in politics. In 1997 John Howard was doing his level best to to minimize Australia’s commitments under the UNFCCC that Ros Kelly had signed. The State and corporate interests, as they saw them, had not really changed – Howard was simply being more honest about it all, because he was being forced to be honest with his back up against the wall.

What I think we can learn from this

That it is too easy in every sense to tell stories about government policy-based entirely around public utterances or perceived personalities of state functionaries leaders. I have been guilty of that of course, we all have. But we also need to remember that states are battlegrounds of and reflections of powerful interests, be they ideological such as churches but also private companies and multinationals etc. Within this mix you’ll also find the usual collection of unions and civil society busy-bodies and do-gooders and somewhere at the bottom the usual collection of, well, people who are trying to figure out if they can afford to stay alive next week and both heat and eat.

What happened next

Australia kept up the criminality.

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.

Categories
Australia

October 11, 1990 – Australian Federal Government makes climate promise, with fingers crossed

Thirty three years ago, on this day, October 11, 1990, the Federal Government of Australia, under Prime Minister Bob Hawke, made its first “commitment” to reduce emissions.

The Commonwealth Government followed the states and also adopted the Toronto Target of a 20 per cent reduction, a target that in retrospect appears hopelessly optimistic. (Scorcher, p. 47)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Second World Climate Conference was coming up. October 10th was the last cabinet meeting before Ros Kelly would be flying off to Geneva and she couldn’t go empty-handed. Meanwhile the environmental lobby wanted a strong target.

Previous Environment Minister Graham Richardson had tried to get the Toronto target agreed in May 1989, and had been shot down by Paul Keating.

What I think we can learn from this

Politicians like targets – it makes them feel and look responsible and responsive. As long as there are caveats and loopholes, they’re happy enough. Other people are willing to sign on with that, more or less. The target is usually so far in advance that the politician will have at least left public office or if it’s a 30 or 40 year in the future target then they’ll be dead and they don’t care. Legacy games, that’s what these are, that’s all they are. But the other effect of the existence of a target is it allows middle-class people to snooze rather than get up on their hind legs.

What happened next

 Kelly went to the second World climate conference shortly after. The international negotiations began properly.

The Industry Commission also did a report about the economics of climate change this was one of the quid pro quo that Paul Keating, still at this stage Treasurer, had extracted for going along with the the Interim Planning Target Australia never took the steps it would have needed to meet the interim Planning Target and by 1995 it was a dead duck. As will our species be in another 20 or 30 years. You could almost say in fact that we are already functionally extinct. We just don’t know it yet but I digress…

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.

References

Hudson, M. 2015 – https://theconversation.com/25-years-ago-the-australian-government-promised-deep-emissions-cuts-and-yet-here-we-still-are-46805