Twenty years ago, on this day, August 28th, 2006,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. 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 after two failed efforts to get a carbon tax up in the early 90s, advocates of economics-based action on emissions reductions had turned their attention to an emissions trading scheme. Two proposals had been defeated in John Howard’s cabinet in 2000 and 2003 and thereafter attention had turned to state-based schemes in Australia’s different states, with the possibility of trading between them.
The specific context was that John Howard was the Prime Minister, was continuing to deride and, wherever possible, block such an effort, especially because it undercut his so-called authority.
What I think we can learn from this is that a policy that is popular, which is not to say would have been particularly effective, will persist, and its advocates will do their best to find other plausible venues, i.e. going through the states rather than the federal government.
What happened next A state-based scheme was supplanted, because in late 2006 it became obvious that Howard was going to have to do a U-turn on the question of an emissions trading scheme if he wanted to stay prime minister. And if he was in fact defeated at the upcoming election (spoiler, he was) then Labor was promising a federal scheme. That federal scheme finally happened from 2012 was then abolished by the next government of Liberal Tony Abbott, and the whole idea of explicit, explicit emissions trading schemes was then defeated.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
August 28, 1971 – snarky opinion piece in New York Times. Stephen Schneider rebuts days later
August 28, 1977 – First Australian“Greenpeace” action, against whaling
August 28, 2003 – EPA says Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant