Tag: 1998

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Australia

June 4, 1998 – A New South Wales premier signs a carbon credit trade…

Twenty five years ago, on this day, June 4, 1998, NSW premier Bob Carr puts pen to paper. As per Hansard –

“It is amazing how up to the mark the Hon. R. S. L. Jones is. This very day, Thursday, 4 June, the New South Wales Premier, the Hon. Bob Carr, signed the first carbon credit trade in Australia as part of an innovative program tackling greenhouse gas emissions and creating new jobs in New South Wales. Today the international finance company Bankers Trust and resource consultants Margules Groome Poyry certified the trade. This is the first time in Australia that major players in the finance and resource sectors have backed a carbon sink plantation in Australia.”

http://23.101.218.132/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LC19980604025

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 368ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Bob Carr as New South Wales Prime Minister premier was wanting to put New South Wales on the map for carbon trading. Global carbon trading looked like it was going to be a “thing”, and NSW has a lot of trees… Carr had been aware of the problem of climate change since 1971, because he saw Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich on an Australian TV show. 

What I think we can learn from this

Within the system, we have smart people who are willing to see the system as basically reformable and tweakable. Will with luck and skill gain promotion. And they will try to implement various (neoliberal market based) wheezes. Sometimes they succeed in bringing the schemes to fruition, but the schemes never will (or “have not yet” if you are a true believer) delivered on their promise.

What happened next

The whole question of a carbon trading scheme fell over. But Carr persisted. And it was his attempt to stitch together all of the states having emissions trading schemes that would then combine that forced John Howard’s hand in 2005/6. Carr stepped down as New South Wales premier in 2005, and was briefly a senator in the federal parliament, and Julia Gillard’s Foreign Minister

And the emissions? Well, they have kept increasing and the atmospheric concentrations have kept increasing. Obviously.

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 Kyoto Protocol UNFCCC

April 29, 1998 – Australia signs the Kyoto Protocol

Twenty five years ago, on this day, April 29, 1998, Australian Environment Minister Robert HIll signed the Kyoto Protocol while in New York.

 As distinct from ratifying it… Robert Hill in New York…

R Hill (Minister for the Environment),Hill signs historic agreement to fight global warming, media release, 29 April, 1998.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 368.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia had secured an absurdly sweet deal at Kyoto. The so-called reduction target meant it could increase its emissions to 112%, and 130%  once a land clearing clause loophole was taken into account. 

It wasn’t clear at this stage whether Australia would try to ratify the Kyoto Protocol –  a federal election was due relatively soon. And so it was mostly harmless signing. So they did it. And not signing would have caused more trouble than it was worth.

What I think we can learn from this

You have to know the details of a process, so you don’t get over-excited about what (you want it to) mean.

What happened next

In September of 1998 it was leaked that the Cabinet had agreed that Australia would not ratify unless the US did. And the US was very unlikely to do that. In the end, in 2002, on Earth Day, because he has a sense of humour. Prime Minister John Howard, to no one’s great surprise, but many people’s shock and dismay, announced Australia would not, in fact, ratify Kyoto.

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
Business Responses Denial Kyoto Protocol UNFCCC United States of America

April 26, 1998 – “Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty”

Twenty five years ago, on this day, April 26, 1998, The New York Times runs a story, probably not that different from the one on the 26th of December 1997 in the Washington Post. That, lo and behold, industrial interests, coal miners, auto makers, etc. are going to continue to try to – to use the academic terminology – shit all over climate action. And I think this is front page news but certainly not a surprise. 

Anyone who’s paying any attention knows that we live in a plutocracy, not a democracy, and that the ability of powerful cashed up vested interests, to shape policy to prevent policies they don’t like, is enormous. Just because the power is enormous doesn’t mean that they always win all the time. But it means the game is rigged, y’all.

1998 Cushman of NYT breaks story – Cushman, J. 1998. Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty. New York Times, 26 April, p.1

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly pp368.8m. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that the US had been at COP-3 Kyoto meeting. I think Al Gore even signed, but it was never going to come to the Senate for ratification. But the danger was that in two years time, if there was a Democrat in the White House, things could somehow change…

What I think we can learn from this

Opponents of action take nothing for granted and are always trying to keep their muscles, their attack muscles fresh, in case they’re needed.

What happened next

Cashed up denialist kept doing their denying.

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
Denial IPCC Science Scientists United States of America

April 23, 1998 – Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick paper published.

Twenty-five years ago, on this day, April 1, 1998, American climate scientist Michael Mann’s paper about temperatures during the last thousand years was released.

http://www.desmog.uk/2015/04/04/how-creation-mann-s-hockey-stick-led-counter-attack-climate-deniers

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 368.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The Second Assessment Report of the IPCC, released in 1995/6 said that there had already been a discernible impact of human activity on the climate. This enraged the denialists, who were looking for new scientists and science to attack.  Michael Mann’s work, which was clearly going to end up in the Third Assessment Report (published in 2001) was one such target. 

What I think we can learn from this

Denialists are always looking for targets, and what they perceive to be easy ones – what Mann has since dubbed ‘The Serengeti Strategy’.

What happened next

It properly kicked off, with endless attacks on Mann, lawsuits back and forth. You can read the Wikipedia page here.  The science was robust.

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

Mann, Michael E.; Bradley, Raymond S.; Hughes, Malcolm K. (1999), “Northern hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations” (PDF), Geophysical Research Letters, 26 (6): 759–762, Bibcode:1999GeoRL..26..759M, doi:10.1029/1999GL900070

see also

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167127-why-the-hockey-stick-graph-will-always-be-climate-sciences-icon/

Categories
Academia Agnotology Denial United States of America

April 20, 1998 – National Academy of Sciences vs “Oregon petition” fraud

Twenty five  years ago, on this day, April 20, 1998, the National Academy of Sciences had to hold a press conference and release a statement because climate deniers had been using its logo and type-face for one of their demented petitions…

.

1998 April 20 NAS statement that Oregon petition not connected to NAS  https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/1998/04/statement-of-the-council-of-the-nas-regarding-global-change-petition

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 368.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Well, as per wikipedia – 

The petition was organized and circulated by Arthur B. Robinson, president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (described as “a small independent research group”) in 1998, and again in 2007.[4] Frederick Seitz, then chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, wrote a supporting cover letter, signed as “Past President National Academy of Sciences USA, President Emeritus Rockefeller University“.[5][6][7] 

More deeply – despite keeping the US from having any likelihood of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the deniers were not happy. They wanted to continue to fling mud, and to sow doubt and confusion. The phony petition was a part of that…

What I think we can learn from this

There are NO – nada, zilch, none – depths of intellectual and moral depravity to which goons like these would not be happy to sink.

What happened next

The Oregon petition was latched onto by the usual type of scientifically-illiterate ‘libertarian’ and ‘contrarian’ as somehow showing there was still debate about carbon dioxide build-up. Worked a treat, because thick pseudo-smart people lap this crap up.

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 Business Responses United Kingdom

March 31, 1998 – two business-friendly climate events in UK and Australia

Twenty years ago, on this day, March 31, 1998, there were two climate events on opposite sides of the world about just how business was going to save us all.

In the UK there was the launch of the Marshall Report

Climate change : a strategic issue for business : report presented to the Prime Minister, 31 March 1998 / Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment

In Australia there was  “Greenhouse Beyond Kyoto: Issues, Opportunities and Challenges” Bureau of Resource Sciences, 31 March – 1st April 1998

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 367.ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

There are two events on either side of the planet worth mentioning in the same blog post. 

The first is the release of a Blair government-era report. Treasurer Gordon Brown had commissioned Bob Marshall to talk to fellow business people about climate and climate policy. This process had been dominated, of course, by BP. Early proposals for carbon pricing had been minimised – more “death of a thousand cuts” until eventually you end up merely with a levy that is easily gamed and supplies ideological cover without driving any change. 

On the other side of the planet, you have the beginning of a three day conference about Kyoto and beyond in Australia. And there’s a similar dynamic really, if we think about it. Business is hoping to shape and minimise what is happening and the government in Australia is more nakedly on their side than it In the UK, partly because Australia is a quarry with the state attached. And partly because Prime Minister John Howard is such a prick. 

What I think we can learn from this

Business never sleeps, it is always in the words of Adam Smith, him what wrote the Wealth of Nations ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices‘.

What happened next

UK climate policy staggered on. Between 2003 and 2009 Climate and Energy Policy were kind of knitted together for various reasons and have stayed entangled. In Australia, they haven’t been entangled nearly as well, imho. There has been enormous tumult and heat, but not much light for various reasons. 

And the emissions have kept climbing….

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

March 4, 1998 – The Australian Greenhouse Office gets a boss…

Twenty five  years ago, on this day, March 4, 1998, Gwen Andrews became the first boss of the “Australian Greenhouse Office”

“With a bureaucratic background in the Department of Finance and an unassuming manner, Andrews was probably useful early on in allaying concern in industry at the creation of the new office. However, as the AGO suffered one Cabinet defeat after another, the hopes of the staff to be part of Australia’s response to the world’s biggest environmental threat were deflated and morale fell. Andrews resigned in 2002 and later said that over her four years in the job she was not once asked to brief the Prime Minister on the issue.

(Hamilton, 2007: 99)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 367.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context for the creation of the Australian Greenhouse Office, was that John Howard had been desperate to minimise the political damage that would accrue from not making a deal or not signing on to a deal at Kyoto. 

In late 1997, before the Kyoto conference, in order to get his version of the narrative installed as insurance, he had announced the creation of the Australian Greenhouse Office. As was pointed out by Clive Hamilton, the funding for this was derisory, and it was likely to achieve nothing. 

And so it came to pass. Gwen Andrews was the appointed CE.

What I think we can learn from this

It’s easy for naive radicals and for liberals to think that the creation of an office or a task force is somehow progress. It is not. It is at best potential progress, the outcome of which will rely on sustained radical non co-opted action. But this is tremendously difficult because for NGOs in need of easy wins such taskforces are pure catnip, and middle-class people who have mortgages to pay, kids to educate and so forth go and get medium to well paid jobs in such structures. You see it all the time. – see the end of this report about Manchester event about airports and public hearings as a redemption ritual – https://manchesterclimatemonthly.net/2013/07/09/event-report-airports-commission-talks-climate-in-manchester-redemptionritual/

What happened next

The Australian Greenhouse office staggered on as a less and less convincing thing, fig leaf, until it was in the manner of these things discarded in 2003 or 2004.

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

Hamilton, C. (2007) Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change. Black Inc.

Categories
Australia Coal

Feb 26, 1998 – Australian “clean coal” is on the way (again).

Twenty five years ago, on this day, February 26, 1998, yet more promises of clean coal were made in Australia, by eerie coincidence the world’s number one coal exporter…

RESEARCH laboratories where scientists will work to make Australian coal the “cleanest” in the world, will be opened by Premier Bob Carr today.

The Ian Stewart Wing of the chemical engineering laboratories at Newcastle University form part of the co-operative research centre for black coal utilisation.

The centre, partially government funded, was established in 1995 to carry out world class research to maximise the value and performance of Australian black coal resources

Anon. 1998. Tests for green coal. Daily Telegraph, 26 February.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366.1ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

At a Federal level, Prime Minister John Howard was resolutely anti-climate action (even after extracting an amazingly generous deal at Kyoto).  At the state level, New South Wales and Queensland wanted to export more and more coal, obviously.

The CSIRO, having been lukewarm/opposed to renewables for yonks, was talking up the prospects of “clean coal.”  

What I think we can learn from this

Research and Development organisations are largely captured by powerful/rich actors, via various mechanisms that are not hard to understand but unless understood ‘in the round’ can be dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory’.  New technologies find it very very hard to get traction…. (Mark Diesendorf has written extensively about this, by the way).

What happened next

Clean coal is still coming, just like full communism was under Brezhnev, and just like nuclear fusion is. Now, about that bridge you were interested in buying from me you know, the one in Sydney… I can bribe the official writing the tender documents, but I need some cash from you up front…

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.