Twenty nine years ago, on this day, July 11st, 1997, John Howard gets his ‘gotta kill any expectations of Australia being a responsible actor on climate’ taskforce together.
Mr Howard yesterday appointed a top level climate change task force, including senior Canberra bureaucrat Roger Beale and Australia’s Ambassador for the Environment Howard Bamsey, to visit Washington, Tokyo and London, following up his recent greenhouse talks with world leaders.
Lunn, S. 1997. Gas targets framed as bargaining chip. The Australian, July 21, p.2.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was xxxppm. 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 the Australian government had initially said the right words on climate, but this melted away through the early 1990s. By 1996, and especially with its performance at the second COP, in Geneva in July, it was obvious Australia would be a bad-faith player.
The specific context was the Kyoto COP was coming, and John Howard was pulling out all the stops to try to avoid any emissions reductions commitments.
What I think we can learn from this, it is not too late to send Howard to the Hague.
What happened next – At Kyoto, through whining and exhaustion, Australia got a 108% emissions “reduction” target, that was actually 130% once you took into account the land-clearing clause.
And Australia STILL did not ratify, until 2007 under Kevin Rudd (that’s another story).
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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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.
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Also on this day:
July 20, 1989 – New “Ambassador for the Environment” role makes greenies happy
July 20, 1989 – Bob Hawke fumbles the green football…