The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, 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 after two failed efforts to get a carbon tax up in the early 90s, advocates of economics-based action on emissions reductions had turned their attention to an emissions trading scheme. Two proposals had been defeated in John Howard’s cabinet in 2000 and 2003 and thereafter attention had turned to state-based schemes in Australia’s different states, with the possibility of trading between them.
Thespecificcontext was that John Howard was the Prime Minister, was continuing to deride and, wherever possible, block such an effort, especially because it undercut his so-called authority.
What I think we can learn from this is that a policy that is popular, which is not to say would have been particularly effective, will persist, and its advocates will do their best to find other plausible venues, i.e. going through the states rather than the federal government.
What happened next A state-based scheme was supplanted, because in late 2006 it became obvious that Howard was going to have to do a U-turn on the question of an emissions trading scheme if he wanted to stay prime minister. And if he was in fact defeated at the upcoming election (spoiler, he was) then Labor was promising a federal scheme. That federal scheme finally happened from 2012 was then abolished by the next government of Liberal Tony Abbott, and the whole idea of explicit, explicit emissions trading schemes was then defeated.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
On 26 August 2006, a bunch of self-declared radicals gathered in Yorkshire, close to the biggest point source of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe – Drax coal-fired power station. In this too brief (too long?) post I reflect on how it came to be, my role (not zero, not huge), what happened next, and what we could learn, if we had any learning capacity.)
How it came to be
From the 1950s the British public were informed about the possibility of carbon dioxide build-up leading to, well, trouble. This was only occasional, and usually came with “well, there might be an Ice Age, who knows?” caveats. By the mid-1970s though, the warnings started to come thicker. However, for good reasons climate change was not a campaigning issue for the various Green groups (the Conservation Society, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace). The 1980s was mostly about trying to keep the maniacs in the White House (not that the Kremlin was exactly sane) from starting a third (and final) world war. CND, marches, Greenham Common (we will come back to that). Finally, in 1988, for various reasons, the ‘greenhouse effect’ burst onto the scene and various campaigns got going. Non-violent direct action on environmental issues got going in the early 1990s, mostly around road bypasses (Twyford, then Newbury). Meanwhile, there was a ‘Wake Up’ time is running out protest in London.
In March-April 1995 there were protests at the very first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Climate Treaty, in Berlin.
The roads protests movements of the 1990s broadened to a wider critique of “development” and “capital”, reaching a kind of apotheosis with the J18 protests (or, if you prefer ‘riot’) in the Square Mile. From that emerged a process – criticised at the time – of ‘summit-hopping’ – of using international meetings of the G7, IMF, World Bank as a hook for ‘action’. Who got to participate and who didn’t was somewhat elided.
Climate Change was definitely “in the mix” though – one of the summits “hopped” was the COP-6 meeting in The Hague, where climate activists did all sorts of cool stuff. The “Rising Tide” group was trying – with limited success (not their fault) – to get fellow activists more focussed on the carbon dioxide problem.
It’s unclear to me how this summit would have turned out – significant and in some cases life-changing violence was dished out to peaceful protestors at Genoa in 2001.
Would that have had the desired effect of scaring people into silence, raising the costs of ‘recruitment’? We’ll never know, because 911 happened (for the avoidance of doubt – the claims it was an ‘inside job’ have always struck me as ludicrous).
Environmental NVDA types were a bit perplexed for 2002, is my sense. As the attack on Iraq became obvious (really by September 2002), people started talking about direct action against war preparations. And Keir Starmer, then a young-ish human rights lawyer, successfully defended some people who took action (but I digress).
Finally (!). In 2005, the UK was hosting a G-7 meeting, and Prime Minister Tony Blair was desperate to change the conversation from the seeming-Forever War in Iraq. He chose climate change as the issue to do that (in the same way that David Cameron, as opposition leader, would use environment- and climate – as a way of de-toxifying the Tory brand). But I am digressing again.
So, there were protests, from the ‘fluffy’ stuff through to attempts at spikier stuff at the Gleneagles G-7 summit (there’s an Ian Rankin Rebus novel set at this time, which is quite fun. Right, that’s my last digression (who am I kidding?)
Crucially, though a bunch of people, veterans of the roads protests, were thinking. They sent out an email (which I can’t find) which said, in essence
“Why are we reactive, letting the capitalists decide what we talk about? Why aren’t we (the activists) more active on climate, the number one issue? We think there should be a Camp for Climate Action in mid-2006, and if you think you want to be involved, come to a one-day meeting in Manchester.”
My role (because, you know, I am so important)
I’d been involved in various things in the late 1990s and for various reasons too boring to write about, had retreated from the ‘spiky’/arrestable stuff in 2001 or so.
I knew nothing of the G-7 discussions until the email hit my inbox. I had a fairly thick folder of newspaper clippings about climate change from the FT, the Grauniad etc. I’d had a vasectomy in 2004 because I knew that the societal response to climate change would be grotesquely inadequate (I’d thought that since the early 1990s) and that there was serious trouble ahead.
If the meeting had been called for anywhere else except Manchester, I probably wouldn’t have gone and my life would have been very very different, for reasons too boring to write about.
Anywho, I went to the meeting, was impressed by some of the people and decided to get involved, even though I knew it would – within a few years – end in tears (I had a conversation with an acquaintance at the end of the day and she asked why I was going to get involved if I had no hope of ‘success’? I said, probably even more pompously than I remember ‘well, you have to, don’t you?’
Some bits of the next few months are very clear, others I have expunged. The planning weekends were monthly, in different cities. Attendance hovered around 50 or 60. I thought London (May, I think) would be bigger but it wasn’t. A wise friend said “no smell of victory.” This was profound. People could get involved in, say, stopping a bypass, or keeping GMOs off supermarket shelves with a plausible path to victory. But climate? Come on – five minutes thinking about it and you realise that this is a lost cause, only to be fought by masochists with simple martyrdom complexes and the malcontents.
I look back on the things I do remember and for the most part I wince and cringe at my actions and general deportment. I look back on some things with a sliver of pride – the
the “Time Up” book, the burnout booklet, and a few others. I loved working with my cartoonist friend Marc..
Anyway, the Camp happened (we will come back to that) though I had thought the odds of the site being occupied were at best 50-50. There were some friendships made, and some near-networks.
There were also many many problems that didn’t get noticed, or were thrown in the too-hard basket – such is the nature of social movement organising.
The interest from the media was unexpected by most, I think. It was, however, “silly-season” (parliament not sitting, politicians on holiday, still acres of newspaper to be filled), and “hippies whining about climate change” was novel.
The Environmental NGOs sat up and took notice, which was a two edged sword.
And the police and security services… well, we will come back to that.
So, after the Camp everyone was exhausted. The decisions about ‘what next’, which I had tried to kick off, with very limited impact, were deferred to the next meeting, at the same venue in Manchester.
That was when I really began to have serious doubts about the strategic nous, and trust in process, of key people. Without re-hashing events that happened literally 20 years ago, there is such a thing as “facipulation” – priming an audience in a certain way and then asking them to make a “free” decision. And that’s what happened. The needed discussion about whether another Camp was the best way forward for 2007, what the dangers and other possibilities were, was simply not held. It COULD have been, thanks to the choices of some people, in positions of power (anyone who tells you there is no power/authority in so-called ‘non-hierarchical organisations’ is either an idiot or a bald-faced liar. Or perhaps both).
I stayed involved, with more and more misgivings. There were moments I appreciated (thanks to whoever got the Greenham veteran to lead a session in Leeds in early 2007 – that was mint, she was great). My final straw was seeing how the activists at Glastonbury 2007. Too boring to write about. I bailed, and started focussing more on local action (Manchester Climate Forum, Manchester Climate Fortnightly, Manchester Climate Monthly. Climate Emergency Manchester what a Gaiadam waste of time).
What happened next
Climate Camp went to Heathrow in 2007. Climate was a hot topic, and the camp was there in London, so of course attendance was much higher (despite bullshit claims, there’d never been more than about 600 people at any one time at Drax. ‘thousands’ my very fat arse).
The following year, 2008, saw the Camp, by now the typical honeypot for various Trot groupuscules, NGOs etc etc parked next to a coal-fired power station again, because this was the age of new coal-fired power stations that were going to be “carbon-capture ready.” Not Ed Miliband’s finest moment – the man does, of course, like his ludicrous technofixes.
That 2008 Camp for Climate Action was pivotal. The police had decided to take the velvet gloves off, mostly. They intimidated, via searches and photos of all who wanted to attend. They blasted “I fought the law and the law won” on loud speakers in the middle of the night. They briefed journalists that police had been injured (implying it was those dirty violent hippy protestors, knowing a mostly supine media would not ask any questions).
This worked – I remember a Manchester activist full of guilt and shame because she couldn’t face the intimidation and threatening behaviour that went with participating in the Camp.
Meanwhile, a couple of months later – The Climate Change Act was passed (props to Friends of the Earth – they threw everything they had at it, lobbyingwise. They got a little lucky (Cameron needing a re-branding issue), but without FoE’s expertise and heft, I don’t think the CCA would have been anywhere near as ‘strong’ as it was [To be clear, we’re utterly toast, my 2004 vasectomy was the right choice. But within the context of the ‘possible’, the CCA was an achievement.]
As far as I could tell, from distance, a lot of the 2006 crew had gotten fed up/burnt out and by 2009 the “Climate Camp” brand was in new, and slightly weird hands. It was held on Blackheath, in London (so, the South dominates again, and again).
2009 was dominated by the upcoming “last chance to save the world” COP to be held in Copenhagen. Despite the fact that “Camp for Climate Action” had started with an explicit critique of ‘summit-hopping’, off people went. Meanwhile, a march in London that all the NGOs had spent the year begging people to attend attracted a relatively paltry 50 thousand (“the Wave” – got help us).
2010 was nail in coffin time, as you’d expect for a social movement wave (people can only put the rest of their lives on hold for so long, sustain the myth of progress for so long, before they say ‘so long’ to forever comrades).
The Copenhagen debacle meant that a lot of people Lost Hope (srsly, fuck ‘hope’). The media stopped paying attention to the whole issue, not just “hippies in a field want social change”. The first climate camp north of the Watford Gap since 2006 was a bust. And then came the revelation that key players in the social movement organisations that had given us roads protests, ‘anti-globalisation’ and, yes, climate camp, were, in fact, deep cover police.
“Awks,” as the kids used to say, briefly.
It’s in that context that the cringe “Metamorphosis” statement emerged from a meeting in early 2011. Climate Camp was dead. Long live… er… er.. Reclaim the Power?
Reclaim the Power tried to stop a new wave of gas-fired power stations, using many of the techniques refined during the Climate Camp era. Brave people, putting their bodies and liberty on the line. Meanwhile, other people threw themselves into stopping fracking, with more success.
In 2015 there was a (failed) attempt at using yet another COP to “kickstart” the UK climate movement.
In 2016 there was an activist zine on “Drax ten years on.” Full disclosure – I was invited to write a piece, and I did. If I can dig it out I will. But the zine was not, in my opinion, a success – many of the key questions that needed asking were not even asked.
In the second half of 2018 “Extinction Rebellion” came along. Combined with the school strikes, the IPCC’s “1.5 degrees” report and Greta Thunberg’s school strike (a highly emotive and easily replicated new repertoire), this gave us the latest ‘Big Wave’.
One observation – during that period you could talk to ‘heavily involved’ XR types who would look at you blankly when you said “Climate Camp.” For the young ones, that was understandable – they had been 8 or 9 or whatever. For those fire-breathers in their 50s and 60s it was, I think, an uncomfortable topic, because it put the lie to the notion that nobody had ever tried to act on climate. These people had, for whatever reason, chosen not to get involved over a decade earlier. Some were quite desperate to ‘make up for lost time’, which, er, you can’t do…
Even before COVID, though, there were real signs that all was not well. I have written about that to death, and if I can be bothered will post some links below.
I think the shituation is truly desperate (duh). We seem to have wasted the last good chances to get our shit together. The future looks unutterably bleak, and I mean the near future, not “2050”. What irritates me the most is that we seem incapable of learning any lessons about anything much. I keep trotting it out, but only because it’s true; if Groundhog Day involved Phil Connors reliving the same day over and over and never learning anything, it would not only be not a comedy, it would be an unwatchable tragedy.
It starts (but does not end) with holding meetings, film showings etc that are actually engaging rather than disempowering for all but the organisers and their acolytes.
It continues with figuring out how to share skills, knowledge, to thicken relationships among individuals and groups, especially facing bits of “civil society” that are not explicitly ‘campaign-y/NGO’.
It continues with having functional groups that can sustain themselves, and make common cause on related issues, and identify leverage points where both policy but ALSO broader social/economic/cultural change might take place.
It needs organised labour, but the trouble is many of the existing organisations (trade unions) are horrifically complicit and sclerotic.
Transmission belts of ‘activist tradecraft’ are fragile.
There is a lot of wheel reinvention (this is not to say that Climate Camp was particularly great at designing and facilitating meetings, either internal or public facing. Some were okay, but for the most part nothing was innovated, learnt, retained, and it was all quite excruciating). But starting from scratch is disastrous.
The pendulum swings
If you aren’t building a group that can survive when the streets empty and the media circus moves on, then you aren’t building anything but your own mausoleum.
The State is far more interested in you than you realise.
Spycops. Not just a job creation scheme for perverts and sadists. Crucially – that first camp (and the others) was allowed to happen. The ‘take the site’ thing in 2006 was choreographed by the police, who knew more than enough to stop it, thanks to their undercovers. It was useful to them to allow the Camps in 2006 and 2007 to go ahead. In 2008 something changed – I don’t know what – maybe the politicians said “enough” or the cops themselves had no more use for the theatre, but they basically stopped it.
Er, …that’s it. It’s Cocker Protocol Time, people.
I’d be interested to hear other people’s takes on all this, especially folks who were there.
Further reading
I’ve read a few academic articles about climate camp, but none that struck me as either insightful or useful. So I ain’t linking to them. If you think you have one that’s particularly good, do chime in.
I’ve not been particularly looking for other “what next for the climate movement?” blogs, and if you think you have one that’s particularly good, do chime in.
This is gibberish. For the love of Gaia, do not rot your brain (and poison the well of public discourse) by using thirsty plagiarism machines. I implore you.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, 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 despite Australia having enormous potential as a creator of renewable energy technologies (especially wind and solar), successive governments (Liberal and Labor, state and federal) had not been particularly interested, and sometimes actively hostile (as was the CSIRO) from the 1970s onwards.
Thespecificcontext was that John Howard had convened a meeting of his “Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group” to get its members to help him… slow the growth of renewables.
What I think we can learn from this is that the actions and inactions of politicians matters for the pace at which a new technology enters the fray. And Howard belongs at the Hague.
What happened next – Howard lost the 2007 election, and some support for renewables was then introduced. Lost decades though, and entirely unnecessary carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere now, trapping heat.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Prime Minister John Howard has attacked state government plans to introduce a carbon trading scheme, claiming it will cripple the resource industry and cause massive price increases for petrol, gas and electricity. He told Parliament yesterday that according to a recent Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics report, a 50 per cent cut in Australian emissions by 2050 ”would lead to a 10 per cent fall in in GDP, a 20 per cent fall in real wages, a carbon price equivalent to doubling of petrol prices and a staggering 600 per cent rise in electricity and gas prices.” [Pearse 2007 is SCATHING on this]
Beeby, R. 2006. Howard attacks carbon trading scheme. Canberra Times, 17 August, p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, 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 there had been various efforts to get a federal carbon tax, and then an emissions trading scheme in Australia. Two emissions trading scheme proposals had gone before John Howard’s cabinet. In 2000 Nick Minchin had killed it off. In 2003 John Howard had killed it off. Insert links
The specific context was that from early 2006 onwards, and especially late 2006 the pressure for climate action became unavoidable, and here we see just before the issue breaks through in September, John Howard trying to attack state governments for being proactive on an issue that he wants to stay dead and buried.
What I think we can learn from this is that 10 years is a long time to be Prime Minister, and Howard had become more isolated and doctrinaire and had lost his feel for issues and simply couldn’t change his ways. And when he tried in 2007 it convinced absolutely nobody.
What happened next The idea of an emissions trading scheme didn’t lie down and die, and in fact, Kevin Rudd, as leader of the opposition, appointed Ross Garnaut to look into an emissions trading scheme, and this then morphed into a federal scheme. Garnaut was then sidelined because he was unwilling to sign off on enormous giveaways to big business, which Rudd felt was wise, and the rest is history.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
August 12 2006 Globe and Mail “meet Mr Cool” article by Charles Montgomergy, about Tim Ball.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, 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 climate was back on the agenda because of the ratification by Russia of Kyoto, the EU emissions trading scheme, and especially Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. And so, as sure as night follows day, the denialists were being given puff pieces and free air time, because, in part of journalistic “balance”, see balance as bias, but also because the people who own the networks and the newspapers want it that way, (it’s never just one thing, or very rarely)
What I think we can learn from this is that empty suits who were saying things that are useful for the millionaires and billionaires will get lots of free air time, and that many journalists are basically stenographers to power with delusions of integrity and competence.
What happened next Canada pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol. Its emissions continue to skyrocket, thanks to the tar sands, and, like Australia, it is suffering the physical consequences of climate change faster than other nations. And of course, the people and species suffering those consequences tend to be the ones who didn’t cause it. Well, certainly the other species.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 381ppm. As of 2026, 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 Bookchin was a very big deal in anarchist circles.
Murray Bookchin (/ˈbʊktʃɪn/; January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006[1]) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. Influenced by the works of G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and Peter Kropotkin,[2] he was a pioneer in the environmental movement.[3] Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ecology and urban planning within anarchist, libertarian socialist, and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books covering topics in politics, philosophy, history, urban affairs, and social ecology. Among the most important were Our Synthetic Environment (1962), Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), The Ecology of Freedom (1982), and Urbanization Without Cities (1987). In the late 1990s, he became disenchanted with what he saw as an increasingly apolitical “lifestylism” of the contemporary anarchist movement, stopped referring to himself as an anarchist, and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called “communalism“, which seeks to reconcile and expand Marxist, syndicalist, and anarchist thought.[4][5]
The specific context (around climate) is that his 1965 book Crisis in Our Cities is one of the first warnings about carbon dioxide build-up to appear in mainstream American non-fiction.
On page 187 we have this –
And this – “Meteorologists believe that the immediate effect of increased heat leads to violent air circulation and increasingly destructive storms…. theoretically, after several centuries of fossil-fuel combustion, the increased heat of the atmosphere could even melt the polar ice caps of the earth and lead to the inundation of the continents with sea water.”
(warnings would become more stark soon, with shrunken timescales).
What I think we can learn from this- vale Murray.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, 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 after a flurry of announcements and pronouncements from 1988 to 1992 or so, the climate issue had slipped down the agenda, wheeled out for election point-scoring (swing voters etc etc). However, from about 2005, with the EUETS, the ratification of Kyoto and Blair’s desperation that the G7 meeting he was hosting not be about the Iraq War, climate moved back centre(ish) stage. Much as Kevin Rudd in Australia would use climate as a stick to wield, so young David Cameron, new leader of the Conservatives, would do.
The specific context was some of us were neck-deep in making Climate Camp happen. What fools.
What I think we can learn from this Talk is cheap.
What happened next. Oh, lots of stuff, including a possible carbon rationing scheme. Then Miliband lost the leadership contest to his brother Ed, and the rest is history.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Twenty years ago, on this day, June 7th, 2006, the Trades Union Council was fanboying ‘carbon capture and storage’ because it would help create ‘Clean Coal Britain’.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. 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 for this was that carbon capture and storage had been dreamt up as a potential techno fix solution for carbon dioxide build up in the mid 70s by an Italian physicist called Cesar Marchetti, and a certain amount of speculative work had been done in the late 70s and again in the early 90s, but the costs were prohibitive, and the technological challenges, shall we say, significant. The specific context is that after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol and finally its ratification, it became clear that technological fixes were going to be the favoured rhetorical device, if not literal device, of political and economic elites. And so you’d had things like the carbon sequestration Leadership Forum, which was just another international talking shop with a logo and press conferences. Meanwhile, in the UK, support for CCS was coalescing.
The specific context was that the Trades Union Council and especially the miners unions and friends of miners desperately trying to interest politicians. This is under Blair, still in the mindset that carbon capture and storage can ensure that domestic coal mining can continue, and the burning of coal for electricity can continue.
What I think we can learn is this: there are all sorts of constituencies for a technology, and that technologies bat about for a long time before they become quote plausible, unquote or implausible, but still implemented.
What happened next: Well, the lobbying effort worked in that in late 2007 the first CCS competition was announced by Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, at an event in London, hosted by the WWF. That competition fell apart. Another competition was launched with confidence that lessons had been learned, and then at the last minute, in 2015 Treasurer George Osborne pulled the plug ; not because he was an opponent of CCS, he just didn’t think it was important, and he wanted to be able to boast about having put more bobbies on the beat. It was that banal. And then a third competition was launched in 2018 or ‘19 or whenever. And you can read all about it in my first and last book.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
References
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Nineteen years ago, on this day, June 5th, 2006, 70 brave people put their bodies on the line…
June 5, 2006, and Nov. 3, 2007: Rising Tide boat blockades of Newcastle port
On June 5, 2006, in a Rising Tide Australia action, 70 people used small boats to blockade the port of Newcastle, Australia, which exports 80 million tons of coal each year. The protest aimed to call attention to a planned expansion that would allow the port to export twice that amount.[1] The action was repeated by 100 people on Nov. 3, 2007: at this second action, participants attempted to block ships from entering the port for four hours, but police boats managed to escort three ships into the port. At one point, a police jetski rammed one woman’s kayak, resulting in her hospitalization.[2][3]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that all the petitions, marches and begging of politicians had not worked. Emissions climbed, fossil intensive infrastructure projects kept getting approved (and still get approved).
The specific context was that the Howard government (like the Keating and Hawke governments before it) had mouthed occasional platitudes about “the environment” but were hell-bent on saying yes to whatever fossil extraction and export was proposed.
What I think we can learn from this is that brave people have had the foresight and clarity – it hasn’t been enough. What was needed was broad-based movements. Oh well…
What happened next was that the exports and burning went on, the emissions and concentrations went up and up. The mainstream politicians have mostly given up pretending to give a shit.
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.
“If you genuinely tell people that building a wind farm here will save the planet from climate change you are doing a massive disservice to the environment. It is an atrocious misleading of the Australian community.”
Ian Campbell, Senate Estimates ECITA Committee, 25 May 2006, p.116.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 3xxppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that by this time, the Howard Government was beginning to look clapped out and tired. The first couple of environment ministers who had been intelligent and slick had been replaced by someone who was maybe not in their league, and he was starting to look idiotic, as was the government.
The specific context was that by this time, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Westpac and other organisations had released their “business case for early (sic) action on climate change.” The Millennium drought was ongoing. There was going to be an UNFCCC negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which Australia still hadn’t ratified. Mostly though, Prime Minister John Howard was just beginning to look like he wasn’t quite on top of things. There was a technology deal with the United States and Korea, the AP6, but it wasn’t really convincing people, and there was clearly going to be trouble ahead on climate and environment generally.
What I think we can learn from this. Governments get tired, and the good ministers burn out, or flame out, and they are replaced by second or third rate is and then you go into a death spiral.
What happened next. Howard lost the 2007 election, and incoming Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd deployed all of his considerable skill, humility and tact to usher Australia into a wonderful climate politics where sharp emissions reductions were combined with a realistic adaptation policy and… oh, come on. You know what happened.
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.
