Twenty eight years ago, on this day, November 2nd, 1998,
SYDNEY (Dow Jones)–The Sydney Futures Exchange said Monday it aims to have a gas emissions trading system operational within 12 months.
This follows a meeting last Monday held between Australia’s New South Wales state government, energy industry representatives and financial market participants to discuss forming a market for trading greenhouse gas emissions.
A working group will soon be established to examine the most appropriate structure for such a scheme, the SFE said. “Any testing of an emissions trading scheme will be as broad as possible and conducted in real time,” the exchange added. The trading scheme will also meet national and international policy on greenhouse emissions, the SFE said.
The development of an international emissions market will be discussed at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Buenos Aires, running from Nov. 2 to 13, the SFE said. The SFE said it will be represented at the convention.
At the Dec. 1997 U.N. climate change convention in Kyoto, Japan, a number of developed countries made binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Australia has committed to limit emissions to 108% of 1990 levels. Greenhouse emissions trading is seen as increasing the incentive to meet greenhouse gas emission targets.
1998 – Australia’s SFE Aims To Trade Gas Emissions Within A Year
Monday 2 November 1998
Dow Jones International News
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 one of the obvious actions you would take to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to put a tax on carbon, and this would incentivize both energy efficiency and the search for new forms of energy generation, especially wind and solar. Entirely logical, but of course that would interfere with the present and especially future profits of people, companies with enormous power, and so it will surprise no one to say that carbon tax proposals had been defeated, and carbon emissions proposals had had a similarly rocky road.
The specific context was that the climate issue had burst onto the scene again. In mid late 2006 for a variety of reasons in Australia, those reasons included the millennium drought, which was seemingly endless.
What I think we can learn from this here is that when an issue has burst back onto the scene people overestimate how quickly a policy solution will be implemented, even if it’s merely legislation, let alone, god forbid, technology.
What happened next There was a five year bloodbath around emissions trading. I don’t think there’s any other word for it. Finally, in July of 2012 an emissions trading scheme began, only to be swiftly abolished by the next (Liberal) government.
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.
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Also on this day:
November 2, 1957 – “Our Coal Fires are melting the poles” Birmingham Post
November 2, 1965 – The Met Office starts twice daily weather forecasts
November 2, 1966 – a pivotal paper is submitted
November 2, 1972 – “Eco-pornography … Advertising owns Ecology”…
November 2, 1994 – Greenpeace vs climate risk for corporates…
November 2, 2006 – throwing shade at the Great Barrier Reef