Tag: 2007

Categories
International processes UNFCCC

December 15, 2007 – Bali COP closes with “Road Map to Copenhagen”

Seventeen years ago, on this day, December 15th, 2007 Bali COP closed with “Road Map to Copenhagen”… We were finally going to take it Seriously and come up with an all-singing, all-dancing successor to Kyoto, only better. Oh yes.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the UNFCCC process had been dealt severe blows in 2001 when newly-selected President Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, or rather the people pulling the strings on the meat puppet called George W. Bush had him pull out. The following year, Australia pulled out, to no one’s surprise. And it looked like the whole idea of the Kyoto Protocol and UNFCCC might just fall apart. It didn’t because the Russians ratified it as a quid pro quo for membership of the World Trade Organisation. And so in 2005 the Kyoto Protocol had become a thing. And then it became a question of what’s going to replace it? And there was back and forth and back and forth, as there always is. And then in 2007, everyone went to Bali, with the idea that they were going to produce a “Roadmap to Copenhagen”. And at Copenhagen, they would sign an all singing, all dancing, replacement, or extension, whatever you want to call it, of Kyoto. And so on this day in 2007, the Bali meeting ended with a fair amount of optimism. It was the same year after all, that the IPCC fourth assessment report had come out. Al Gore and the IPCC had won a Nobel Prize. It was a great time for Bert Bolin and William Kellogg to die (as they did), because, frankly, it looked like everything was going to be okay. Or at least manageable. 

What we learn is that the UNFCCC has been through these processes before. There’s been ups and downs and it’s all part of the soap opera. 

What happened next? Well, Copenhagen was a joke. And the pieces of crockery had to be glued back together again. They were and everyone went to Paris. And history repeats itself. We’ve been through tragedy and farce, I don’t really know where we are now.

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: 

December 15, 2005 – James Hansen versus Bush again…

December 15, 2009 – Monbiot versus Plimer on Lateline

December 15, 2009 – Daily Express expresses its irresponsibly idiocy…

Categories
Nuclear Power United Kingdom

September 29, 2007 – World’s first nuclear power station is demolished

Seventeen years ago, on this day, September 29th, 2007, a nuclear power plant goes kaboom, but in an okay way.

Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station, is demolished in a controlled explosion

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that nuclear power was gonna signal a renaissance for British industry, global industry. It had been a very expensive nightmare, but had given us supply chains for nuclear weapons and the technology and the workforce to keep those going. So that’s the most important thing; keeping the UK seat on the Security Council as a nuclear power. 

What do we learn? Is that all good things come to an end and so does Calder Hall. Compare the end of Concorde in 2003…

What happened next? Well, this was 2007. This was in the midst of yet another attempt to go nuclear. By this time Blair had been successfully lobbied. And here we go, planning to spend yet more money on nuclear energy and it’s not going to work. 

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

Compare the last flight of Concorde on October 24 2003

Also on this day: 

September 29, 1969 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson blah blah “second industrial revolution” blah blah pollution blah blah

September 29, 2000 – On campaign trail, George Bush says power plants will require carbon dioxide cuts

Categories
technosalvationism United States of America

September 28, 2007 – Bush invokes “technology” to fix climate. Like morons everywhere.

Seventeen years ago, on this day, September 28th, 2007, George Bush showed what he was capable of. Again,

28 September 2007 Bush speech

We’ve identified a problem, let’s go solve it together. We will harness the power of technology. There is a way forward that will enable us to grow our economies and protect the environment, and that’s called technology. We’ll meet our energy needs. We’ll be good stewards of this environment. Achieving these goals will require a sustained effort over many decades. This problem isn’t going to be solved overnight. (Bush 2007)

(Scrase and Smith, 2009:707-8).

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Bali meeting of the UNFCCC was impending. And there was a lot of pressure about getting a “Roadmap to Copenhagen.” On adaptation mitigation, technology transfer, a deal would be stuck at Copenhagen that was going to Save The World. And Bush had spent his time as president as a meat puppet for Dick Cheney and the oil companies. He was not in favour of any meaningful action on climate change because it might constrain his fossil fuel buddies. And so, when you can’t do full on denial what other fallbacks do you have other than a bit of lukewarm-ism, (“it’s not as bad as the hysterical activists are saying”) and of course, our old friend technology; technology will save the day. 

What we learn is that technology will not save the day. It’s one of the most reliable instruments for the opponents of meaningful climate action. 

What happened next? Bush stopped giving much of a shit about anything. And there is the famous so long from the world’s biggest polluter comment at the G7 meeting the following year. 

The Bali COP did start the gun on negotiations. And Copenhagen was a complete failure. Pretty much a complete failure. And Bush? Bush was just an asshole. 

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: 

September 28, 1997 – Australian denialist spouting tosh to his US mates.

September 28, 2000 – Liberal MP goes full cooker on Kyoto as threat to sovereignty.

September 28, 2008 – “Wake Up Freak Out” posted online

Categories
Australia

September 26, 2007 – GetUp spoof Howard’s climate greenwash

Seventeen years ago, on this day, September 26th, 2007, Australian Prime Minister John Howard gets mocked for his climate change “position.”

FANS watching Saturday’s grand final can be sure of a political hit with their footy.

Activist group GetUp! is spending $70,000 on a 30-second advertisement sending up the Government’s Climate Clever ads.

Grattan, M. 2007. Spoof sinks the boot into climate clever ads. The Age, 26 September

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australian Prime Minister John Howard had spent 10 years being a complete douche on many issues, including climate change. Now, there was a federal election pending and he had released some ridiculous television adverts. A then new and exciting-ish group called Get Up dd spoof adverts. It’s easy to look powerful when kicking a man when he’s down. What’s more interesting with Get Up is how its model has fallen over since 2019. But there you have it. 

What we learn is that satire could look powerful against a weak and wounded politician. When they’re in their pomp, it seems to bounce off. Maybe it does, maybe it suddenly undermines them. There’s that line in Somerset Morton’s Then and Now (an account of an ageing Machiavelli), where people can survive any hatred but they can’t survive mockery. 

What happened next Howard not only lost government, but he lost his own seat as an MP. First time in 70 years. Labor’s Kevin Rudd became prime minister and screwed the pooch on many things, especially climate change. 

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

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Also on this day: 

September 26, 1989 – Australian Union body tries to add green to red…

September 26, 1998 – Howard decision only to ratify Kyoto if US does leaks.

Categories
Australia Carbon Capture and Storage

August 14, 2007 – CCS report in Australia “between a rock and a hard place”

Seventeen years ago, on this day, August 14th, 2007, a CCS report comes out

2007 Between a rock and a hard place report of House of Representatives Standing Committee on Science and Innovation (Australia)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the year before the Senate had called for a report about CCS and Australia. This was in the broader context of CCS being pushed by Howard since about 2004 (earlier if you count the PMSEIC stuff). 

What we learn is that these sorts of investigations throw up reports of varying quality and usefulness. 

What happened next? The CCS bandwagon kept going for a couple of years before it finally the wheels came off in late 2010. 

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: 

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

August 14, 1971 – Stanford Prison Study begins…

August 14, 2002 – Australian economists urge Kyoto Protocol ratification

Categories
Australia Kyoto Protocol

May 30, 2007 – Kevin Rudd pledges to ratify Kyoto, set emissions target and create an ETS

Seventeen years ago, on this day, May 30th, 2007, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said he’d take climate action, oh yes.

“The Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd, promised a more progressive approach. It pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, establish a target of reducing Australia’s emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050 and create an emissions trading scheme by 2010.” Macintosh, 2008 Page 52

K. Rudd An Action Agenda for Climate Change, Annual Fraser Lecture, Belconnen Labor Club, Canberra, 30 May 2007 (Australian Labor Party, Canberra: 2007).

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Rudd had been using climate change as a stick to beat John Howard with, very successfully and this was another punishment beating that he issued with great success. Sadly, because he raised expectations of morality, decency, seriousness, and then dashed them. 

What we learn is that talk is very cheap. And seductive if you’re sick of the current vandal.

What happened next

Rudd became Prime Minister, then fannied about rather than getting the job done. And crashed his chance to be a Labor leader for the ages. Oh well.

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: 

May 30, 1990 – Midnight Oil do a gig outside Exxon’s HQ in New York

May 30, 1996 – Denialist goons smear scientist

Categories
Australia

May 29, 2007 “Climate Clever” ad campaign in attempt to save John Howard

Seventeen years ago, on this day, May 29th, 2007, Prime Minister John Howard uses taxpayers’ money to try to get people to forget his past ten years of climate vandalism/criminality.

Labor turned up the heat over federal government advertising as Prime Minister John Howard conceded a climate change campaign was on the way.

Anon, 2007. Climate change ad battle heating up. Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May.

See also

THERE is $52.8 million ready to spend on a climate-change advertising blitz if and when the Government chooses to introduce one, Prime Minister John Howard admitted yesterday.

Doherty, B. 2007. Howard coy on $53m ads. The Age, 30 May.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australian Prime Minister John Howard had spent 10 years doing everything in his power to stop climate action. He had been enormously successful with this. From September 2006, however, the pressure for action became intense, and he needed to pivot. So we had the Shergold report group that was supposed to pronounce on an emissions trading scheme. But Howard had not really convinced anyone about his new green credentials. The ABC’s Tony Jones had trolled him in February of 2007. And he had denounced the Stern Review as “pure speculation.” So it’s kind of unsurprising that all this taxpayer funded Climate Clever advertising bullshit, launched in September 2007, convinced precisely no one.

What we learn is that politicians are used to being able to U-turn, pivot on a dime, to have no convictions, but there is a limit. (See Martin Kettle talking about Francois Mitterrand in The Guardian, December 7 2023, which is the day I’m recording this.) And you can’t easily remake yourself once people have made up their mind about you as much as you would like to think that you can. You’re set in concrete. 

What happened next, the Climate Clever nonsense was spoofed by Get Up. Howard couldn’t bring himself to ratify Kyoto, because he knew he looked weak. And he was swept from office by Labor’s Kevin Rudd. But that didn’t mean that the climate policy issue then got dealt with by adults. That would have to wait until Juliet Gillard, in 2011. That is not to say there weren’t adults who didn’t make massive mistakes but still, nonetheless, adults. 

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: 

May 29, 1968 – UN body says “let’s have a conference, maybe?”- 

May 29, 1969 – “A Chemist Thinks about the Future” #Keeling #KeelingCurve

Categories
United States of America

May 14, 2007 – another C40 large cities summit

Seventeen years ago, on this day, May 14th, 2017, the second “C40 Large Cities” summit was held. Backs were slapped, business cards exchanged, palms probably greased, and all the other things that happen at these events happened. And we are not saved.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Climate Group had been set up in 2004. And this summit, well, I wasn’t there, but it was surely another interminable junket, people getting together to display their virtue and swap business cards and give each other copies of glossy reports full of carefully chosen smiling individuals with the solar panel on their roof. 

And it was 2007, being the year that the IPCC fourth assessment report came out, Al Gore, everyone looking towards Bali, for what would be the “roadmap to Copenhagen,” “gosh, we can fix this,” etc, etc. And in the meantime, get some nice contracts.

What we learn is there is an endless circuit of this stuff, this guff. And you can have a nice career feeling good about yourself, going from event to event, talking about how the cat should wear a bell. And some of it does actually happen. Because technology is improved, because social movements have success, because companies see a market. It’s not that nothing has happened. It’s that we smother ourselves in bullshit about how much will happen and how easy it will be to do in the face of obduracy and resistance.

Although the penny does seem to be dropping that we are screwed. So there’s that. 

What happened next C40 kept going. The caravan kept rolling. Occasionally the wheels would fall off and need to be glued back on, as after Copenhagen but it’s too valuable to too many people, too essential, in fact, to pretend that business as usual with some tweaks will get us out of the mess that business as usual has created. And to think or, even worse, say otherwise renders you unemployable and a weirdo who might infect others with their weirdo germs. 

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: 

May 14, 2002 – well-connected denialists gather in Washington DC to spout #climate nonsense

May 14, 2010 – a day of action/mourning on climate

Categories
Australia

April 30, 2007 – Rudd hires Garnaut

Seventeen years ago, on this day, April 30th, 2007, new Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd hires an economist…

On 30 April 2007, the leader of the federal opposition Australian Labor Party, Kevin Rudd,(along with the state and territory governments) engaged world renowned economist Professor Ross Garnaut to conduct a wide ranging review into the effects of climate change on Australia and its economy (Garnaut 2008).

(Rice and Martin, 2016:48)

and

BRISBANE, April 30 AAP – The federal opposition has commissioned an economics professor to head a Stern-type review into the impact of climate change on Australia’s future.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd announced the Garnaut Climate Change Review in Brisbane today, saying it would outline the threat to the country’s economic prosperity and investigate mitigation strategies.

It will be headed by Australian National University economics Professor Ross Garnaut, who will hand down interim findings mid next year, and a completed report by October 2008.

Marszalek, J. 2007 Fed: Opposition commissions Australia’s own climate report. Australian Associated Press General News, April 30

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that new opposition leader Kevin Rudd was using climate as a stick to beat John Howard with, in much the same way that the UK Conservative leader David Cameron was using climate issue as a way to detoxify the Tory brand at more or less the same time. 

The broader context was that there had been multiple efforts to get emissions trading schemes going. Two had happened at the federal level in 200- and 2003, defeated by Tim Nick Minchin and John Howard, respectively. And also state led States led Emissions Trading had been on the agenda. So for example, especially the Victorian and New South Wales Premiers Bob Carr, leading the charge. And Garnautr who had been involved in some of that was a well respected economist who’d worked for Hawke on opening up the Australian economy, ie, reducing tariff barriers. 

What we learn is that policy might be good or bad, but it gets used as a blunt instrument in political wars to its cost. Because once it becomes part of political war, implementation is fragile and reversal is possible. That’s what happened in this case. (this is not an argument for pas devant les enfants technocracy, btw). 

What happened next Garnaut produced his final report rather in the middle of the following year, but by that time, Rudd as prime minister had set up a parallel process and Garnaut was kind of on the outer. The parallel process gave us the CPRS bless it and you know, the rest. 

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: 

April 30, 1985 – New York Times reports C02 not the only greenhouse problem

April 30, 2001 – Dick Cheney predicts 1000 new power plants

Categories
Australia Carbon Capture and Storage Coal

March 26, 2007 – Lavoisier Group lay into CCS

Seventeen years ago, on this day, March 26th, 2007, the broken clocks at the Lavoisier Group (a denialist outfit) were right about CCS, with an article in the Brisbane Courier Mail denouncing it as a boondoggle that would not ‘work’ but would waste a lot of money.

Last month Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd announced Labor’s National Clean Coal Initiative.

Roughly speaking, the term clean coal refers to various technologies for removing carbon dioxide from coal when it is used to generate electricity, both before and after combustion occurs. The term encompasses carbon capture and storage technologies.

Rudd’s policy commits $500 million of taxpayer funds on the development of these technologies, with the proviso that each taxpayer dollar must be matched by two private sector dollars.

Rudd also proclaimed that Labor would establish an emissions trading scheme, set renewable energy targets, develop plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, convene a summit on climate change and ratify the Kyoto protocol.

Apart from ratifying an obsolete international treaty and organising yet another Canberra talkfest, Labor’s policy of subsidising corporations, making grandiose plans and setting impressive-sounding targets is eerily similar to existing Government policy.

The Howard Government happily boasts about Australia meeting its Kyoto targets and has already set up a taskforce to examine emissions trading schemes.

Its Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund has committed taxpayer funds of $500 million for research, with the proviso that each taxpayer dollar must be matched by—you guessed it—two private sector dollars. Additional funding is planned for future years.

Robson, A. 2007. Clean coal is all hot air. Courier Mail, March 26

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that a few days before the ACTU had been in the news, promoting CCS. And everyone was talking about CCS; the Lavoisier Group were keen to try to debunk it. 

What we learn from this is that just because they’re climate denialists and idiots, doesn’t mean they’re wrong about the plausibility of a technology, even if it is being pushed as a solution for a problem that they don’t believe exists. Stopped clocks right twice a day and all that. 

What happened next The Lavoisier Group, which was essentially Ray Evans and his mates funded by Hugh Morgan, kept going and were pretty effective at what they did. This was also in the lead up to Labor Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd‘s conference in Parliament as opposition leader on March 31 2007 when he said that “climate change is the great moral challenge of our time.” 

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 26, 1979 – Exxon meets a climate scientist

March 26, 1993 – UK government to ratify climate treaty