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Australia

August 2, 1994 – Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating says greenies should ignore “amorphous issue of greenhouse”

On this day, August 2nd in 1994, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating was on ABC Radio and

“chastised environmentalists for their attention to the “amorphous issue of greenhouse” and suggested they instead celebrate their previous victories on forestry conservation.”

(Mildenberger, 2015: 317-318) ABC National News Interview, 2 August, cited in Taplin, R. (1994). Greenhouse: an overview of Australian policy and practice. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 1(3): 142-155.

The context was this – Keating, as Treasurer, had already stopped Graham Richardson from introducing a 20% reduction target [see July 25th blog post], watered down the next pledge, and gotten the Industry Commission to investigate the economics of climate (in order to squash the issue). When he took over as Prime Minister in December 1991 the “Ecologically Sustainable Development” process was killed off (see blog post on this site on 6th August). He had then conspicuously absented himself from the June 1992 Earth Summit (the only OECD leader not to attend.)

Why this matters

Our leaders have, mostly, not got it, not cared.

What happened next

Keating’s Environment Minister, John Faulkner, tried to get a carbon tax through Cabinet, but did not succeed. The emissions kept climbing. The atmospheric concentrations kept climbing.