Read The Age of Global Warming: A History Online
Authors: Rupert Darwall
The Age of Global Warming: A History (45 page)
On 24
th
November, Australians went to the polls and delivered their Bali breakthrough. Climate change was a ‘perfect storm’, according to Howard.
[67]
It hadn’t been much of a political issue until 2006. There was a long drought and an early start to the bush fire season. The Stern Review generated a lot of publicity. So did Al Gore’s
An Inconvenient Truth
, which Howard thought ‘spiced with attacks’ on the Bush administration.
[68]
Howard tried to adjust to the new political climate in a January 2007 speech. Describing himself as a ‘climate-change realist’, Howard said he accepted the broad theory about global warming. ‘I am skeptical about a lot of the more gloomy projections,’ he told the National Press Club in Canberra.
[69]
Howard was not going to surf the climate change wave like Labor’s Kevin Rudd. He rejected Rudd’s claim that climate change was the overwhelming moral challenge facing Australians. ‘It de-legitimises other challenges over which we do have significant and immediate control.’ Neither should Australia set a target based on the needs of other countries. ‘I will not sub-contract our climate change policy to the European Union,’ Howard said, rejecting Labor’s call for a sixty per cent cut in Australia’s emissions by 2050.
[70]
Looking back four years on, Howard though the politics of global warming contributed to his defeat; it was a case of ‘John Howard didn’t seem that interested’ when the issue had come to dominate Australian politics.
[71]
Ten days after taking office, Kevin Rudd flew to Bali and handed Ban Ki-moon Australia’s instrument ratifying Kyoto. Moments later, he addressed the conference and ‘all people of goodwill committed to the future of our planet’. Climate change was the defining challenge of the age, Rudd said. It was imperative for the conference to agree to work together on a global emissions goal, one that recognised the core reality: ‘We must avoid dangerous climate change.’
[72]
* For a semi-anonymous civil servant, Mottram shot to national fame for telling a fellow civil servant: ‘We’re all fucked. I’m fucked, you’re fucked, the whole department’s fucked. It’s been the biggest cock-up and we are all completely fucked.’ He wasn’t talking about climate change but the resignations of his department’s senior media handlers. David Graves and George Jones, ‘Sixsmith stands by story as infighting continues’ in the
Daily Telegraph
, 25
th
February 2002.
* It was hearing from the British Antarctic Survey about the ozone layer that had persuaded Margaret Thatcher to throw her support behind international efforts to cut emissions of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances.
[1]
Hans Blix interview with John Norris, MTV, 13
th
March 2003 http://www.mtv.com/bands/i/iraq/news_feature_031203/index5.jhtml
[2]
Press Trust of India, ‘Global warming has hit the danger point’ 23
rd
January 2005.
[3]
UNFCCC, ‘Time series Annex I – Total CO
2
Emissions without Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (2011), http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/ghg_data_unfccc/time_series_annex_i/items/3814.php
[4]
UNFCCC, ‘Time series Annex I – Total CO
2
Emissions without Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry’.
[5]
International Energy Agency,
CO
2
Emissions From Fuel Combustion Highlights
(2011), p. 46.
[6]
Dieter Helm, ‘Forget the Huhne hype about wind power’ in
The Times
, 6
th
February 2012.
[7]
International Energy Agency,
CO
2
Emissions From Fuel Combustion Highlights
(2011), p. 109.
[8]
Hans Blix interview with John Norris.
[9]
Robert May, ‘Threat to tomorrow’s world’ 30
th
November 2005 http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/60/1/109.full
[10]
Richard Mottram, ‘Careful Science can help fight climate change’ in the
Financial Times
, 29
th
July 2008.
[11]
David A. King, ‘Climate Change Science: Adapt, Mitigate, or Ignore?’ in
Science
, 9th January 2004, Vol. 303 No. 5655, pp. 176–7.
[12]
James R. Lee, ‘Global Warming is just the Tip of the Iceberg’ in the
Washington Post
, 4
th
January 2009.
[13]
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/fco-in-action/carbon/low-carbon/
[14]
Lee, ‘Global Warming is just the Tip of the Iceberg’.
[15]
Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall,
An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security
(October 2003), p. 7.
[16]
ibid., p. 2.
[17]
ibid., p. 16.
[18]
Department of Defense,
Quadrennial Defense Review Report
(February 2010), p. 84.
[19]
ibid., p. 85.
[20]
Gerhard L. Weinberg,
A World at Arms
(1994), p. 2.
[21]
Paul Ames, ‘European Union warns US, China over climate change, saying it could impose sanctions’ Associated Press, 14
th
March 2008.
[22]
Ames, ‘European Union warns US, China over climate change, saying it could impose sanctions’.
[23]
Klaus Töpfer, ‘The Spectre at the Feast’ 16
th
February 2005 http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=426&ArticleID=4719&l=en
[24]
Australian Associated Press, ‘Kyoto pact is useless and harmful: PM’ 6
th
February 2005.
[25]
John Howard interview with author, 28
th
November 2011.
[26]
The Federal News Service, ‘Remarks By Presidential Economic Adviser Andrei Illarionov at a Press Conference on Results of The Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol Seminar In Moscow’ 8
th
July 2005 www.sysecol2.ethz.ch/Articles.../Illarionov_Interv._9.Jul.04.pdf
[27]
Andrei Illarionov, ‘Russian Ministers’ decision to ratify Kyoto “motivated purely by politics” according to Putin’s advisor’ 30
th
September 2004 http://www.policynetwork.net/es/environment/media/russian-ministers%E2%80%99-decision-ratify-kyoto-%E2%80%98motivated-purely-politics%E2%80%99-according-put
[28]
Tony Blair,
A Journey
(2010), p. 557.
[29]
Paula Dobriansky interview with author, 24
th
June 2011.
[30]
George W. Bush, ‘President Bush Discusses Global Climate Change’ 11
th
June 2001 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html
[31]
Bush, ‘President Bush Discusses Global Climate Change’.
[32]
Paula Dobriansky interview with author.
[33]
Harlan Watson, ‘Testimony Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment United States House of Representatives Hearing on The Kyoto Protocol: An Update’ (July 2007), p. 18.
[34]
Dobriansky interview with author.
[35]
Boyden Gray, ‘Trust America on Climate Change’ in the
Financial Times
, 26
th
September 2007.
[36]
Paul Brown, ‘Climate conference hears degree of danger’ in the
Guardian
, 3
rd
February 2005.
[37]
Geoffrey Lean, ‘Apocalypse Now: How Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth’ in the
Independent on Sunday
, 6
th
February 2005.
[38]
Brown, ‘Climate conference hears degree of danger’.
[39]
Lean, ‘Apocalypse Now: How Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth’.
[40]
Geoffrey Lean, ‘Global Warming Approaching Point of No Return, Warns Leading Climate Expert’ in the
Independent on Sunday
, 23
rd
January 2005.
[41]
Jenny Hogan, ‘Alarm bells ring louder over climate change’ in the
New
Scientist
, 4
th
February 2005.
[42]
Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, ‘Global warming or global cooling’ in the
Times of India
, 27
th
February 2005.
[43]
Aiyar, ‘Global warming or global cooling’.
[44]
Joint science academies’ statement: Global response to climate change (June 2005) http://royalsociety.org/policy/publications/2005/global-response-climate-change/
[45]
ibid.
[46]
Paul Brown, ‘Blair may snub US on climate’ in the
Guardian
, 1
st
July 2005.
[47]
ibid.
[48]
Elizabeth Rosenthal & Andrew Revkin, ‘Science Panel Calls Global Warming “Unequivocal”’ in the
New York Times
, 3
rd
February 2007.
[49]
Rosenthal & Revkin, ‘Science Panel Calls Global Warming “Unequivocal”’.
[50]
BBC News, ‘EU agrees renewable energy target’ 9
th
March 2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/6433503.stm
[51]
ibid.
[52]
Nicholas Watt, ‘Weapons claim: the dossier, the PM, and the headlines’ in the
Guardian
, 6
th
February 2004.
[53]
Panorama
, ‘What’s Fuelling Your Energy Bill?’ 7
th
November 2011.
[54]
Warren Hoge, ‘UN Chief Urges Fast Action on Global Climate Change’ in the
New York Times
, 24
th
September 2007.
[55]
ibid.
[56]
Václav Klaus,
Blue Planet in Green Shackles
(2008), pp. 108–9.
[57]
Václav Klaus remarks after delivering GWPF inaugural lecture, 21
st
October 2010.
[58]
Klaus,
Blue Planet in Green Shackles
(2008), p. 12.
[59]
ibid., p. 4.
[60]
ibid., p. 5.
[61]
ibid., p. 2.
[62]
Brian Knowlton, ‘Climate Change Conference Opens’ in the
New York Times
, 27
th
September 2007.
[63]
George W. Bush, ‘President Bush Participates in Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change’ 28
th
September 2007 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070928-2.html
[64]
Knowlton, ‘Climate Change Conference Opens’.
[65]
Norwegian Nobel Committee, The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 Press Release 12
th
October 2007 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html
[66]
Ban Ki-Moon, ‘Address to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) upon the release of its fourth assessment synthesis report’ 17
th
November 2007 http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/search_full.asp?statID=151#
[67]
John Howard interview with author.
[68]
Selina Mitchell & Cath Hart, ‘Howard a climate convert’ in
The Australian
, 26
th
January 2007.
[69]
ibid.
[70]
ibid.
[71]
John Howard interview with author.
[72]
Kevin Rudd, ‘Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Address To The UN Bali Conference On Climate Change’ 12
th
December 2007 http://australianpolitics.com/2007/12/12/rudd-address-to-bali-climate-change-conference.html