Tag: Tony Abbot

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Australia China United States of America

November 14, 2014 – US and China sign climate deal, in part to troll Australian Prime Minister

Ten years ago, on this day, November 14th, 2014,

The US and China governments make joint announcement on emission reductions: The two nations announce bilateral cooperation to adopt a binding protocol at the Paris COP meeting in 2015. US will aim cut emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025 and China pledged to peak emissions around 2030.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 399ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Tony Abbott as Australian Prime Minister and host of a G20 meeting in Brisbane had very publicly kept climate change off the agenda literally. So what Obama and Xi did – this is back when Xi wasn’t yet nuts – was making a bilateral deal as a way of pointing out to Abbott, who was the boss/ 

What we learn was that it’s fun to make fun of Tony Abbott.

What happened next, well it turned out that US/China deal was consequential in terms of getting things moving a bit for investors and governments and so forth. It took a hit when Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement. Biden has been mostly mending fences on this stuff, doing statecraft, which is what you’d expect of a president. But yeah, sometimes stuff that initially seems like a gimmick turns out to be really important. 

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.

Also on this day: 

November 14, 1977 – Met Office boss forced to think about #climate change – first interdepartmental meeting…

November 14, 2013, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s 50th #climate speech

Categories
Australia

August 16, 2012  – Tony Windsor calls Tony Abbott an “absolute disgrace” on carbon tax/climate

On this day, August 16 2012, independent MP in the Australian Federal Parliament Tony Windsor has to explain the basic facts of life to Tony Abbott, then Opposition Leader

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 392.59 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

“The issue had also erupted about 12 months earlier, on 16 August 2012…. I’d had a gutful. His hypocrisy on the so-called carbon tax, or as it was originally cast, a price on carbon, was evident as the scheme had been supported by the Coalition in the lead-up to the 2007 election. Abbott and many inside and outside the parliament seemed to have forgotten that both sides of politics shared the same target for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. So when Abbott moved one of his many politically motivated suspensions of standing orders I gave him a spray about his hypocrisy on the matter….”

(Windsor, 2015: 212)

‘I will do anything, anything, to get this job’ – they were the comments, and people know that, and they should know it, because you are an absolute disgrace in the way in which you are wandering around on this issue. You have exactly the same target as the emissions trading scheme-pricing arrangements. You have exactly the same target in terms of the 1990 levels by 2020. And you have the audacity to actually say to people that you are going to achieve that target through a much more expensive arrangement than putting a price on carbon – particularly given the history that you have on this issue.

(Windsor, 2015: 218-9)

Why this matters. 

You can be a Rhodes Scholar and dumb as a rock. That is all.

What happened next?

Abbott became Prime Minister. Of course he did. And the one thing he achieved? Repealing the carbon price that the Gillard government had shepherded through parliament.