Seventeen years ago, on this day, December 30, 2006, the coal-floggers were, surprise surprise, not happy with spending money on climate change mitigation…
Australia’s coal-fired electricity industry has dismissed the Federal Government’s key strategy to cut the nation’s escalating greenhouse emissions as too expensive, financially risky and untested. The National Generators Forum, the 21 companies that dominate Australia’s power industry say the Government’s plans to rely heavily on carbon capture and underground storage to clean up emissions from coal burning are unrealistic, and will not work. Its members are also not convinced carbon dioxide is linked to climate change.
Beeby, R. 2006. Industry snubs climate strategy. Canberra Times, 30 December.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Howard government had been forced – kicking and screaming – to start to seriously pretend that it was going to do something about Australia’s domestic emissions. Howard had appointed a bunch of business types to the so-called Shergold Report committee, and was trying to make the right noises. But for some of the knuckle-draggers it wasn’t enough – they didn’t get that it was all kayfabe…
What I think we can learn from this
There are always knuckle-draggers and the climate skepticism thing is entertaining… But they were also right about CCS not working -l and this is one of those pivotal moments which, if I had my time over, I’d explore again.
What happened next
Howard’s Shergold Report thing convinced no one – it just made him look weak and he got his ass handed to him in the November 2007 election. He was, I think, only the second Prime Minister to lose his seat in an election.
CCS went nowhere in terms of reality, but continues to have a wonderful life in Australia as a fantasy technology.
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..