Twenty three years ago, on this day, April 3, 2000, Australian diplomats once again spread bullshit rather than truth about climate change.
At the Pacific Islands Conference on Climate Change, Climate Variability and Sea Level Rise, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, well, see a contemporary account…
Mr Hare said he had recently been to a Pacific greenhouse conference in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, [3-7 April – where Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials had tried to play down the impact of the greenhouse effect. He said they had put up arguments that sea level rises were not as high as had been reported and might not necessarily be a result of global warming. Senator Hill said if the department’s officials were mounting that argument, it might be on the basis of scientific uncertainty in the area..
Clennel, A. 2000. Greenhouse Gas Conference `stacked’. Sydney Morning Herald, 15 April, p.15
See here too.
[Compare with Australian diplomats rumoured behaviour at the first IPCC report meeting in Sundsvall in August 1990]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Howard Government had bludgeoned its way into a sweet sweet deal at Kyoto, but it was obvious they would not ratify unless the Americans did (vanishingly small chance of that). Meanwhile, the Australian diplomatic corps(e) was continuing its minimisation techniques (as per the Sundsvall meeting in 1990).
What I think we can learn from this
Bureaucrats have their own views, and run their own games. To think of them as merely passive lackeys of elected politicians is very naive.
What happened next
The oceans have kept on rising. Australia has kept on being a villain. The small island states have kept pointing out that in the absence of serious action, they are screwed (they are screwed).
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..