Twenty five years ago, on this day, November 26, 1998, yet another “National Greenhouse Strategy” was launched in Australia. Utterly meaningless of course.
Robert Hill launches the National Greenhouse Strategy (just a ‘refresh’, basically – bureaucratic games…)
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22media%2Fpressrel%2F39006%22
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had been the “National Greenhouse Response Strategy” dribbled out in December 1992, which was a lot of fine words stripped of all meaning after the defeat of the people in favour of sanity during the ecologically sustainable development process.
The Howard government, re-elected in October 1988 thought they needed to pretend that they’re doing something. The AGO has been launched, but the Renewable Energy Target was still being kicked down the road, down the road, down the road demoralising environmentalists and investors.
What I think we can learn from this
Just because it is said by a “serious” person doesn’t mean it ain’t kayfabe.
What happened next
The National Greenhouse Strategy went nowhere. Of course, it was always designed that way, and anyone who thought otherwise was either naive or cynical. And emissions kept climbing.
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.