Tag: Bob Carr

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Australia

November 15, 2004 – Bob Carr on Lateline- “no other developed country will be as severely affected by global warming as Australia.”

Twenty years ago, on this day, November 15th, 2004, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr responded to a CSIRO report with some astute observations about what was coming… (back when the ABC still had a backbone and a Lateline).

Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT

Broadcast: 15/11/2004

TONY JONES: And for anyone who tuned in a bit late, we should point out Mike Bailey’s potential weather outlook was for November 15 in the year 2030.

Well, to discuss the issues raised in that report we spoke to the NSW Premier, Bob Carr, earlier today.

Bob Carr, thanks for joining us.

Clive Hamilton from the Australian Institute said today that no other developed country will be as severely affected by global warming as Australia.

Do you agree with him?

BOB CARR, NSW PREMIER: I do. I think of all nations, Bangladesh, or some of the small island states would only be worse affected but we stand, for example, to have even more erratic rainfall.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378ppm. As of November 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Millennium Drought was ongoing. The Liberal government of John Howard Government was showing itself to be utterly hostile to any action on climate change. And in fact, was at this point, heavily boosting coal and natural gas exports and for domestic use. Bob Carr was still premier of New South Wales and had done what he could to get carbon offsetting and carbon trading going in his own state, and also to get the other states on board for a bottom up emissions trading scheme. 

What we learn is that these issues were being discussed and debated by top people, in the right places 20 years ago, or longer. 

What happened next? Bob Carr stopped being premier at about that time shortly after, and later became Julia Gillard’s Foreign Affairs Minister. The emissions kept climbing of course, as did the atmospheric concentrations. 

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: 

November 15, 1958 – Academic Paper on “Changes in Carbon Dioxide Content of Atmosphere and Sea Due to Fossil Fuel Combustion” submitted

November 15, 1983 – “Energy Futures and Carbon Dioxide” report…

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

January 13, 2004 – Bob Carr rallies states for emissions trading

Twenty years ago, on this day, January 13th, 2004, NSW was trying to get an Australia-wide emissions trading scheme going, since John Howard wouldn’t…

NSW is keen to enlist the support of the other states for a national greenhouse emissions trading scheme, but analysts are divided on whether it would work. The Premier, Bob Carr, yesterday labelled as scandalous the Federal Government’s decision to abandon carbon trading as one way of reducing Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions. Mr Carr, who is in favour of Australia ratifying the Kyoto protocol on climate change, wants the states to establish an alternative emissions trading scheme. 

New South Wales Premier Bob Carr says the Federal Government is “in denial” about the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. The Federal Government has decided to stop work on a greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme, saying it offers little incentive for business. The scheme is linked to the Kyoto protocol, which the Australian Government has not signed. But Mr Carr says the Federal Government’s move has potentially cost jobs for Australians involved in the emissions trading industry. “We’ve got an opportunity to benefit – Australia can benefit from emissions trading and the Federal Government is pulling out of this,” Mr Carr said. “Whether they sign up to Kyoto or they don’t, there’s a case for emissions trading and Australia can only benefit from being part of an emissions trading system.”

Peatling, S. and Pearlman, J. 2004. Carr rallies states for onslaught on emissions. Sydney Morning Herald, 13 January. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/12/1073877762902.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that personally Bob Carr had been aware of the climate issue since 1971. And as premier of New South Wales since 1995 he’d been trying to turn New South Wales into a carbon trader or place where the Japanese could buy some trees to offset their emissions. More broadly, he’d been campaigning for emissions trading schemes. There had been two attempts to get a national federal Emissions Trading Scheme through John Howard’s cabinet. One had been defeated in August of 2000. And another had been defeated in August 2003, at which point Carr presumably said to himself, “sod this for a game of soldiers. Let’s do it ourselves”. This was made easier by the fact that most of the states were at that time under ALP control. 

What we learn from this is that policies that are perceived as good ideas (and emissions trading is, after all, perceived as a good idea) are hard to kill. I mean, fair play to him, Tony Abbott finally succeeded in the period 2010 to 14, but before then, emissions trading was like this vampire policy, you just could not kill it off.

What happened next? The states kept talking about it. Finally, in the beginning of 2007, Kevin Rudd as opposition leader started promising an emissions trading scheme. And well, the rest is history. 

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: 

January 13, 2005- UN Secretary-General calls for “decisive measures” on climate change

January 13, 2021 – New Scientist reports on types of intelligence required to deal with #climate change   

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Australia

September 25, 2003 – Bob Carr “strikes greenhouse deal” with European investors

Twenty years ago, on this day, September 25, 2003, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, who had been aware of the greenhouse effect as a problem since 1971, keeps going in his efforts to make the state a hub of carbon offsets/trading and so on …

“Carr strikes greenhouse deal with European investors”

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s954007.htm [link now dead]

PM – Thursday, 25 September , 2003 Reporter: Peta Donald

(David Kemp slaps it down – not carbon trading.)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Federal Government of Australia had shown time and again that it was not interested in carbon trading or making any international linkages that weren’t bullshit photo-ops with George Bush. This was not to stop the New South Wales government and Bob Carr from pursuing such deals which he did…

What I think we can learn from this is that in a Commonwealth system there are multiple points of entry and pressure, and there is a back-and-forth between States and Federal Government as there is between federal and international systems. When one is failing the other is supposed to pick up the slack and vice versa. That’s the theory -sometimes both are failing …

What happened next – nothing much came of it, it all just kind of petered out, as far as I remember (if you know different, drop me a line!).

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.

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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 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.

Categories
Australia

February 17, 2003 – Bob Carr says John Howard showing poor leadership (too generous!)

Twenty years ago, on this day, February 17, 2003, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr (long aware of climate problems) accuses John Howard of merely going along with the US in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

Bob Carr has today released a new report, sponsored by three Labor states, that he says shows that the cost to Australia of not joining the treaty will be higher than joining it. It claims that countries that do not ratify the agreement on greenhouse gas emissions will lose out on future investment opportunities in renewable energies. 

Mr Carr has also proposed setting up a new office in New South Wales to oversee the use of renewable energy and carbon emissions.

He says if the Prime Minister will not act then he is forced to show leadership on the issue. “I think it’s not unfair to say of our Prime Minister, that all his instincts are very, very conservative and he’s going along with America,” he said. “He’s going along with America but if there was ever a case for running a policy independent of Washington this is it.”   

ABC, 2003 Carr accuses Howard of poor leadership. 17 February 2003

Meanwhile, on the same day, Greenpeace tried to widen the existing split within the Business Council of Australia over the Kyoto Protocol….

SYDNEY, Feb 17, AAP – One of Australia’s big four banks has indicated its support for an international treaty to cut greenhouse gases.

Greenpeace today said initial findings of its survey of Business Council of Australia (BCA) members revealed Westpac supported the aims and objectives of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol

AAP. 2003. Westpac supports Kyoto Protocol – Greenpeace. Australian Associated Press Financial News Wire, 17 Feb

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

John Howard was cuddling up to George Bush on everything – the attack on Iraq, trashing climate diplomacy, you name it.  Carr was busy still trying to turn New South Wales into some sort of exemplar, at least for carbon trading (thus the report and the Gore-schmoozing).

Meanwhile, Greenpeace was having to do WWF’s job of splitting the business sector, because WWF was being very friendly with Howard (though to be fair, later in 2003, WWF tried to grow a pair. Sort of).

What I think we can learn from this

Finding/enlarging splits between government and business and splitting apart the (usually superficial) unity of business is something that NGOs can be good at.  Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation kept at it, and it sort of bore fruit in 2006. Strange fruit, but fruit. Sort of (no, not really, but what are you going to do?)

What happened next

Howard never signed up for Kyoto, to his cost in 2007

Various “pro”-climate business groupings have come and gone since 2003.  Lots of warm words, not much else, though they would all dispute that, naturally.

Carr stopped being Premier in 2005, and later served as Julia Gillard’s Foreign Affairs Minister

And we all lived hotly ever after, until we didn’t.

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

Categories
Australia

Feb 22, 2000 – Japanese coal-burning to be dealt with by Australian trees?

On this day, February 22, in the year 2000, Japan and Australia talked up a deal that would have allowed carbon offsets and carbon trading using New South Wales as a giant carbon sink. 

Zinn, C. 2000. Japan in eco-credit deal with Australia. The Guardian, 22 February https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/feb/22/2 Australian forest authorities have been contracted to plant 40,500 hectares of trees (about 100,000 acres) on behalf of one of Japan’s largest power companies in a controversial scheme to fight global warming. The trees are meant to offset some of the greenhouse gas emissions generated in Tokyo. The Tokyo Electric Power Company signed the deal, which could cost up to £50m, with the New South Wales’s forestry division to grow hard and softwood plantations to capture carbon dioxide (CO2). But environmentalists question whether the project, scheduled to run for 10 years, will work. They claim the area is too small and that the forests must be maintained forever or the CO2 will go back into the atmosphere when the trees are processed.

The context is this. New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr had long been aware, and I mean long been aware of climate change as a problem – going all the way back to 1971 and a television appearance of Paul Ehrlich. He became premier of New South Wales in 1995. And there was a lot of interest in carbon trading and carbon sinks in the aftermath of the December 1997 meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Kyoto, Japan, 

Japan, although energy efficient, was using a lot of coal from Australia. And so there was a certain symmetry in the deal, which did not ensue, because Australia just wasn’t going to ratify Kyoto. And without that, it couldn’t be “in” the sorts of deals. 

Why this matters

We need to remember that there are all sorts of fancy footwork, elegant solutions, in inverted commas, that do not come to pass. And even if they had, they would probably have been a disaster for biodiversity and not tackled the real problem. No, the basic problem is, nobody wants to cut their emissions, if it’s gonna cost money, and dampen the great God, economic growth

What happened next

Kyoto finally became law (minus the USA and Australia) in 2005.  17 years later, we’ve retreated from any binding targets to a “pledge-and-review” farce called the Paris Agreement.  We’re so screwed.