On this day, November 10 in 1988, a conference in Hamburg called for an even stronger target than the Toronto Conference in June of that year. However, elsewhere, the IPCC was meeting for the first time, and its (far more cautious) recommendations would prove weightier
1988 a World Congress on Climate and Development was held in Hamburg [It was November 7 to 10]. This called for carbon dioxide emissions to be reduced by ’30 per cent by the year 2000 and 50 per cent by 2015. It argued for unilateral action from the industrialised nations to start the process of change; a global ban on the production and use of CFCs covered by the Montreal Protocol by 1995 and urgent strategies for reversing deforestation and beginning afforestation programmes.
Paterson, M (1996: 35)
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 350 or soppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Why this matters.
In 1988 folks realised more or less what needed to be done. These were not the folks in charge of the show though. And within a couple of years the predatory delay gang had got their organisations and tactics worked out… We need to remember all this…
What happened next?
Hamburg was forgotten immediately. The international diplomacy rolled on, leading from the beginning of 1991 to the United Nations process that led in June 1992 to the UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. During those crucial years, the US Administration of George HW Bush played chicken with everyone. Everyone blinked. Bush “won.”