Twenty seven years ago, on this day, July 23rd, 1997, Tim Wirth called out the Australians for being bonkers.
Asked about the economic modelling by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE) on which the Howard Government’s stance is based, he said he had not seen it.
But he was generally sceptical of industry-funded models and said the US Administration believed modelling around the world showed green-house gases could be stabilised at either no economic cost or an economic benefit – a finding strongly at odds with ABARE’s work.
“I think there are some people who plug their own assumptions into models and then they flog those models as if they are the things that are going to define and predict the future of the world,” Mr Wirth said.
“Anybody who believes that an economic model is going to be able to predict to points of percentage of increase or decrease, I’d raise an eyebrow . . . or look at what those people have been smoking, because I don’t believe there’s any way in the world you are going to get that sort of accuracy.”
The ABARE modelling draws such conclusions and was partially funded by industry. “Industry groups . . . have points of view that they are paid to advocate,” he said.
Taylor, L. 1997. US rejects Aust `differentiated’ greenhouse goal. Australian Financial Review, 24 July, p3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that at COP1 in Berlin in 1995, the rich nations had agreed that they would come to the third meeting with plans for their own emissions reductions. That meeting was to be held in Kyoto. International capital, especially oil and gas and coal, had mobilised ferociously against the science – see the attacks on the IPCC’s. second assessment report. And there were also campaigns in the US against Kyoto, Australia’s government, under that thug John Howard, trying to carve out the sweetest deal they could. And that’s what led Clinton’s climate envoy Senator Tim Wirth to say that he wanted to know what the Australians were smoking because he felt that the claims for special treatment were unjustified and demeaning.
What we learn – you can laugh at denialists and obstructors all you like. That doesn’t make them less formidable.
What happened next well, Australia wore down the other nations, it not only got the 108% so-called “reduction” target. But it also managed to insert a so-called “land clearing” clause, which meant in effect, their emissions reduction target was 130%. So, while Tim Wirth’s jibe was a good one, The Last Laugh belongs to Howard.
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:
July 23, 1979 – Charney Report people meet – will conclude “yep, global warming is ‘A Thing’.”
