Tag: Martin Holdgate

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Commonwealth Sea level rise United Kingdom

October 17, 1987 – CHOGM meeting at which Margaret Thatcher has climate “brought home to her”

Thirty seven years ago, on this day, October 17th, 1987, in Vancouver, a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting took place, and other leaders (especially the small island states) tried to bend UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s ear on the problem of climate change.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 349ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that since 1985, scientists have been trying to warn politicians. Low lying nations and so forth were paying attention because they could see the writing on the wall or the waves washing over the seawall. And Thatcher by her own account, copped an earful at this Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. For all the good it did – it would be almost another year before she would give her speech at the Royal Society

What we learn is that you have to tell ideologues the same thing many many times before they’ll pay any attention. And God what a stupid species we are. 

What happened next? Yeah, you’ve got the explosion of interest in 1988.

In 1989, the CHOGM lot received Martin Holdgate’s report, which had been commissioned at Vancouver.

https://thecommonwealth.org/news/archive-holdgate-report-climate-change

Shridath Ramphal, then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, who commissioned the report from an international expert group at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Vancouver, Canada, in 1987, described the threat of climate change in his foreword as “truly global in its implications”.

He said: “If the Earth is to warm by even the most modest of the various projections, there could be far reaching, long term implications for natural ecological systems, farming, the design of major energy and water projects and for low lying areas that could be affected by rising sea level.”

The Holdgate report called for a “major international initiative” to establish “global responsibilities” for preventing unmanageable rises in the world’s temperature. It also spelt out practical steps which poor and small countries like Guyana, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Pacific islands, could take to monitor their changing environment.

 You’ve got the November 1989 Male declaration about sea level rise. You then have the toothless 1992 UNFCCC (the climate treaty).

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: 

October 17, 1973 – the coup at the Australian Conservation Foundation

October 18, 1973 – “how on earth do you stop using fossil fuels?”

October 17, 2009 – Maldives cabinet meets underwater

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Manchester United Kingdom

September 21, 1993 – Manchester says “no, not hot air”. Yeah, right.

Thirty years ago, on this day, September 21, 1993, the well-meaning but being-used people running the “Partnerships for Change” summit defended themselves from attack.

MANCHESTER, England — Organizers of a world environment summit designed as a sequel to the Rio Earth Summit Tuesday dismissed criticism that the international conference was producing more hot air than hard results.

Conference chairman Martin Holdgate defended the goal of the Partnerships for Change summit in Manchester, saying its purpose was to find practical solutions to international environment problems.

Haycock, G. 1993. Environment summit not flawed, say organizers

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that at the 1992 Earth Summit UK Prime Minister John Major had offered to host the follow-up conference. This then got split in two, with the “Partnerships for Change” thing, and then a Global Forum supposed to happen in June of the following year (it almost didn’t). Partnerships for Change was rendered effectively useless because the UNFCCC was ratified more quickly than had been expected and it was therefore obvious that the actual negotiations were going to start relatively soon (as they did in Berlin in March April of 1995).

Fun facts – at this Partnerships for Change someone stole the videotape of John Major’s welcome, and also John Gummer (Lord Deben to you) was herded onto a tram and not allowed off.

What I think we can learn from this – just variations of the circle jerk.

Whether or not any given meeting “achieved” its objectives or not is neither here nor there. It comes down to implementation by social movements and civil society organisations that can monitor implementation. Not got those? Then you are left with the usual boom and bust cycle and So It Goes.

xxx

What happened next –

 is that partnerships to change was quickly forgotten the global forum all so quickly forgotten and the cop process began in earnest.

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..

References

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United Kingdom

April 5, 1971-  a UK scientist explains “pollution in context”

Fifty two years ago, on this day, April 5, 1971, a UK scientist gave an overview of “pollution in context to an assembled audience of the great and the good (and the mediocre and middling)

POLLUTION IN CONTEXT by  MARTIN IV. HOLDGATE , PhD Director of the Central Unit of Environmental Pollution , Department of the Environment,* delivered on Monday 5th April 1971 Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 119, No. 5180 (JULY 1971), pp. 529-542

Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137075

 1. Naturalness One broad classification can be based on ‘naturalness’. Some substances that can be ‘pollutants’ occur naturally, and are widely dispersed in the world. Some are essential to life. Carbon dioxide is a good example: it is the foundation of photosynthesis by which green plants using solar energy create sugars. Without CO2 in the air, life as we know it could not exist on this planet. And much CO2 enters the air naturally through the respiration of living things and organic decay. Since 1890, man, burning fossil fuels (which are themselves a residue of undecomposed organic carbon that escaped conversion to CO2 long ago) has raised the CO2 level of the atmosphere from around 290 to 320 parts per million but in that same period the natural input has certainly greatly exceeded the artificial

(Holdgate, 1971: 530)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Everyone was talking about pollution – air, water, noise, you name it. Doomwatch was on the tellie, and the European Year of Conservation had just finished, with the big UN conference in Stockholm just over a year away.

What I think we can learn from this

Again, none of this is a secret.  “We” “knew.”  And then pushed it out of our minds, and then it had to be pushed back in. Then was pushed out again.

This has a name – the Issue Attention Cycle, as per Downs in 1972. But Robert Heilbroner had predicted this would be the case as early as April 1970…

What happened next

The attention died down, as people got bored/used to things, and then other (economic) problems came along.

Martin Holdgate, who is still alive, had a storied career. He was Chief Biologist to the British Antarctic Survey, then research director of the Nature Conservancy Council and, for eighteen years, Chief Scientist and head of research at the Department of the Environment.[1] Subsequently, he was Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.”

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...