Fifteen years ago, on this day, July 31, 2008 the “Strategic Review of Australian Government Climate Change Programs” was released:
“The Wilkins Review analyzes current climate change programs to determine whether they are complementary to the CPRS”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Rudd Government had set up the Wilkins Review to “house clean” and to get rid of all the other climate support schemes which were not market-based. And in exchange, we would get an economy-wide carbon price which would by magic, fix all the problems because that’s what these people genuinely believed.
What I think we can learn from this is that there are lots of people who are very smart with all of the right qualifications, who also have no idea how the world really works.
What happened next is Rudd’s wonderful Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme died. Twice. He bottled calling an election in early 2010, Julia Gillard had to clean up his mess and Australia’s emissions are high.
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.