Twenty nine years ago, on this day, February 10th, 1995, the Australian Environment Minister John Faulkner conceded that he didn’t have the numbers to get a carbon tax proposal through cabinet.
THE Minister for the Environment, Senator Faulkner, has abandoned proposals for the introduction of a carbon tax …. His decision was made on Friday [10th February] after two days of talks with environmental and business groups
Ellis, S. and Gill, P. 1995. Faulkner calls off plans to impose carbon tax. The Australian Financial Review, 14 February, p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had been an entirely sensible idea put forward by the greenies at the Australian Conservation Foundation, among others, to have a small carbon tax that would fund energy efficiency and solar. This had finally been put forward by the environment minister, John Faulkner in 1994. It had led to a vehement coordinated attack on the proposal. The opponents had played their cards very well. The proponents not always so well. And on Friday 10th of February Faulkner had realised he didn’t have the numbers because the crucial role in politics is “learn to count.”
What we learn is that everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost and this is one of the times that the good guys lost. What we also learn is that proposals for sanity get made all the time and usually get defeated.
What happened next? Faulkner went to COP1 in Berlin and announced himself happy. There was the announcement of the entirely voluntary greenhouse challenge, bullshit that achieved nothing other than to confuse people. Its purpose was to make BHP and its chums look like ”responsible” corporate citizens.
Twenty nine years ago, on this day, January 12th 1995 the game of chicken and dare around a carbon price in Australia was coming to a head. A front page story in the Canberra Times began as follows,
“A greenhouse gas levy remains firmly on the Government’s agenda, with the bureaucratic working group responsible for developing the levy meeting for the first time yesterday.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 360ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Australian Conservation Foundation (a big green NGO) and others had been pushing for a carbon tax for years initially as part of the Ecologically Sustainable Development policymaking process. And although they had suffered defeats, they didn’t let it go. New Environment Minister John Faulkner had taken that on board and he had also taken on board Phlilip Toyne who had been a major force in the Australian green movement as head of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
What we can learn is that there is a great deal of believing when you’re top of the web or “dissent ecosystem”, (not that you can be at the ‘top’ of such a thing) in that when you’re a big player it’s tempting to believe that you can join the system and change the system from within. Then there’s a logic to doing so, or wanting to do so: beyond easy claims and smears of careerism, and parlaying radicalism to take one of the jobs for the boys. Toyne tried. He failed to get the tax up – but that was because the opposition to it was clear and clever and the support for it did not have its shit together.
What happened next a month and two days after this was in the newspapers, Environment Minister John Faulkner pulled the plug on a carbon tax. Instead, there was a meaningless voluntary scheme, the Greenhouse Challenge, which was reheated a couple of times, but frankly, never amounted to a bucket of warm spit.
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.
Twenty eight years ago, on this day, January 6, 1995, as part of a broad attack on a proposed carbon tax, business whined “yeah, but no other country is doing anything.”
”THE business push for a cautious approach by the Federal Government on greenhouse gas controls has been given a boost by a new study which shows only a handful of countries will meet their emission reduction targets.
The study, prepared by industry groups, shows only five of the 36 countries which are key members of the International Panel on Climate Change appear likely to meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2000.”
Dwyer, M. & Wilson, N. (1995). Study argues against $320m carbon tax. The Australian Financial Review, 6 January, p.5. (See also the editorial – Anon. 1995. The trouble with a carbon tax. Australian Financial Review, 6 January, p.12)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 360ppm. As of 2023 it is 419
.
The context was that Australian business interests had already defeated a carbon tax proposal in the lead up to the Rio Earth Summit, and were mobilising an even broader coalition of actors and ‘arguments’ (including our old friend ‘the sky will fall’ economic modelling) in this effort.
What I think we can learn from this
The fact that doing anything about climate change is a really hard collective actor problem is used to make climate change a really hard collective actor problem, and to ‘justify’ (excuse) doing nothing, and engaging in predatory delay.
What happened next
The business lobby effort was successful (for multiple reasons). The carbon tax was abandoned. Attention switched to emissions trading schemes. No actual carbon price came into play until 2012. And was then swiftly killed off by the next Australian government. The emissions and the atmospheric concentrations? They climbed. Of course they did.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Dwyer, M. & Wilson, N. (1995). Study argues against $320m carbon tax. The Australian Financial Review, 6 January, p.5
On this day, December 23 in 2009, Kevin Rudd was given the strongest possible advice to go for an early “double dissolution” election and force through climate policies.
In the week before Christmas, on 23 December 2009, a leadership strategy group comprising Rudd, Gillard, Swan, Faulkner, Arbib, Bitar and Alister Jordan gathered at Phillip Street, Sydney. Accounts of this meeting differ widely and significantly. Yet the central thrust seems clear. Arbib and Bitar say they wanted an early 2010 double dissolution election to be announced around Australia Day 2010.
Paul Kelly, 2014, Triumph and Demise, p275
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 387ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Kevin “greatest moral challenge” Rudd had been enjoying watching the Liberals and Nationals tear themselves apart on climate change, while simultaneously allowing his own policy to be watered down and watered down. When push came to shove, the Greens (whom he had been steadfastly ignoring) didn’t vote for the legislation. Tony ‘wrecking ball’ Abbott became opposition leader, the Copenhagen conference failed and Rudd lost the plot.
Why this matters.
The ALP never point out that their man Rudd had a choice, and he blew it. Instead they blame the Greens (full disclosure – I am not now, and never have been, a member of the Green Party of Australia/England/Mars whatever.)
What happened next?
Rudd chickened out, lost all credibility when he punted the climate issue that had been – according to him ‘the great moral challenge of our generation’. Then he tried to bring in a mining tax, incurred the wrath of the cashed up miners (obvs) and then got toppled by his deputy, Julia Gillard, after a front page of the Sydney Morning Herald story with an insinuatiion against her loyalty to Rudd against her finally broke her patience (and loyalty). And then, then the soap opera got properly wild…
A friend and supporter of this project has asked me to write about “carbon credits,” which are right now a ‘hot topic’ (sorry) in Australian climate politics.
What follows is not a comprehensive history, and only partly references posts that have already gone up (more are lurking in the near future). The second half is given over more to – well, why the big focus on ‘carbon credits’ – what is allowed and disallowed by that focus?
Comments very welcome, but not about the existence or severity of climate change – the time between now and the Actual Fricking Apocalypse (AFA) is short, and I don’t intend to waste even a minute of it on trolls, bots and poster-children for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Australia and economic instruments around climate change.
In 1973 (not 1971 as the Tweet says!) Treasury, responding to concerns about the “diseconomies” of economic growth, released a report.
On this day 8 June, 1971, the Australian Treasury released a report "Economic Growth: Is it Worth Having?" On page 11 and 12, it considers… “the greenhouse effect” and the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.https://t.co/8SiRbmAEVa 🧵 1/6 pic.twitter.com/8Q3Rbt3Doi
— All Our Yesterdays (@our_yesterdays) June 7, 2022
It basically wasn’t that bothered. And with hyper-inflation and all sorts of other economic mayhem, the Whitlam Government seems not to have paid attention.
So, let’s skip forward to the coming of the “Greenhouse Effect” in the late 80s – and we should always remember that thanks in part to Barry Jones (Hawke’s Science Minister) Australians were well-informed (Commission for the Future, Phillip Adams, The Greenhouse Project, Greenhouse 87, Greenhouse 88, Stephen Schneider, Barrie Pittock, Graeme Pearman etc).
In 1988, Barry Jones pointed out that a price on carbon dioxide was a reasonable economic measure. Other people were saying the same – this is uncontroversial – Pigou etc etc – you want to discourage something, you make it more expensive. “The market” then finds a way. So the story goes.
But in Australia, on climate, until 1995, the major focus was on a carbon tax rather than emissions trading. And it had advocates, beyond the Australian Conservation Foundation. And they pushed it within the “Environmentally Sustainable Development” process of 1990-91. And they lost. Or rather, the determined efforts of a growing “greenhouse mafia” (to shoot Guy Pearse’s useful formulation back before the existence of the AIGN) were successful in defeating a carbon tax. Ros Kelly, Hawke and then Keating’s Environment Minister, explicitly ruled out any price on carbon, both before and AT the Rio Earth Summit-
And was defeated, by an even more determined and sophisticated resistance.
And after this, for various reasons (mostly to do with what the Americans wanted/were willing to countenance) taxes fell away (Clinton, don’t forget, had been defeated on his BTU tax in 1994) and “emissions trading became the flavour of the month. You can see it in various Australian Treasury documents, in conferences, speeches etc.
The basic idea is you create a “market” and so its magic then… reduces emissions. Meanwhile, certifiers, bankers, lawyers all get rich.
There were two big efforts under Howard to get a national Emissions Trading Scheme going. Both were defeated – the 2000 one by Nick Minchin, the 2003 one by Howard himself. Check out Guy Pearse’s High and Dry for gory details, and also Marian Wilkinson’s The Carbon Club. And there is the work of Clive Hamilton too (esp Scorcher).
Advocates of emissions trading soldiered on. One key entrepreneur was Bob Carr (there are blog posts on this site about him coming up). At a time when all states had Labor governments, they were co-ordinating on a bottom-up emissions trading scheme. Howard was not happy.
Then, when climate change “took off” in the second half of 2006 in Australia, Kevin “I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help” Rudd latched onto climate as a wedge issue.
BUT he had to go carefully, not to scare Queensland voters.
some sort of carbon trading (he put Ross Garnaut in charge of that, while in opposition).
Howard tried to come back against this, saying he WOULD now introduce a carbon trading scheme if re-elected. But too little too late etc etc
What do we learn here? That carbon trading, carbon credits etc, are regarded as “common sense” (read Tony Gramsci on this!) as normal, reasonable and the best respectable position. Despite zero evidence that they would actually “work” at reducing emissions.
I don’t intend to go through the insane gory details of the period 2007 to 2012 (and onwards) – you have not bought me enough Cooper’s for that. But I will say this.
In early 2010, after Rudd’s “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” had failed twice, and while Rudd was being too spineless to call a double dissolution election on the “great moral challenge of our generation” the Greens proposed an interim solution, a … carbon tax. Labor ignored the proposal (hi Penny!).
So, let’s skip over the last 10 years of “carbon pricing.” Except this, from the Turnbull-Frydenberg era, may amuse…
By getting into carbon credits, you can give the appearance of wanting to do something/doing something, and getting everyone focussed on a very small/technical issue which few understand. Perfect! It makes it virtually impossible for civil society actors, with their pesky legitimacy and demands for morality and far-sightedness and courageous decisions, to be involved.
It means you don’t have to piss off those very rich people who are funding you.
That’s the political purpose/attractiveness of carbon credits, over and above any actual “efficiency”.
Two final things. What I am saying is not new, or profound. Check out
Compare it with a so-called “inefficient” tax. Which is easier to collect, offers far fewer opportunities for evasion, gaming, arbitrage, get-rich-quick-scamming. Funny how the complex stuff always wins out, eh?
What is to be done?
Oh, god, I have written about that so much. Try this.
On April 24 1994, the Australian environment minister John Faulkner starts to fly a kite, as they say in the politics business.. The kite have a small carbon tax to help Australia stabilise its emissions, and have some sort of diplomatic cover when the UNFCCC started its meetings.
This is the opening of a policy stream or the continuation of a politics stream depending on which bit of John Kingdon you care to follow
Less than a year later, the effort was defeated. Australia never gets an effective long-term price on carbon dioxide and therefore (but not only for this), the emissions basically keep climbing
{Not the the carbon tax would have on its own being a solution.
Why this matters.
We need to remember that policy proposals that are relatively innocuous and minor will be treated as an existential threat by specific industries who will then respond accordingly and effectively.
And here we are. With the atmospheric concentrations climbing, human emissions climbing, temperatures, climbing, death rates going to climb. we had a slender chance to fix this – or at least give our wisdom a chance to catch up with our technologies.. Now it’s too late. And everything is fucked.
What happened next?
The tax proposal got shot down in February 1995. The idea of a tax was replaced with an emissions trading scheme, and that got shot down on multiple occasions. Finally became law in 2012, then repealed in 2014 by Tony Abbott.
On April 8 1995, Australian environment minister John Faulkner declared himself happy with the Berlin mandate that had emerged from the first COP..
Faulkner had just failed to get a carbon tax proposal through the cabinet of Labor. Prime Minister Paul Keating this was supposed to be a signal of Australia’s intent at the first Conference of the Parties of the UNFFFC held in Berlin in March, April.
The COP had finished despite the best efforts of Australia and other parties with a mandate that said industrialised countries of which Australia was one should turn up two years later at the third COP in order with concrete proposals and agreement for emissions reductions.
1995 Noack, K. 1995 Faulkner sees way forward from Berlin. Canberra Times, 9 April.
LONDON, Saturday: Australian Environment Minister John Faulkner said yesterday he was satisfied with the outcome of the Berlin climate change conference, saying it offered a way forward for all countries to combat global warming.
On the final day of the 11-day meeting, agreement was reached on a mandate for further negotiations on greenhouse gas emission reduction measures by developed countries.
Senator Faulkner, who was part of the group of ministers who hammered out the final agreement, said it was ultimately a successful conference given the wide range of interests represented.
“Australia’s very satisfied with the outcome of the group of ministers and the achievement of a mandate to negotiate a protocol,” he said from Berlin.
Why this matters.
We have been failing to do more than agree to keep talking about climate change for a very very long time…
What happened next?
Faulkner was no longer environment minister after March of 96, when the Howard government took over the Berlin Mandate was agreed it took us to Kyoto in 97. And was useless and the carbon dioxide accumulates.
