Go Greener, Australia

Clive Hamilton’s book Scorcher is a history of climate change politics in Australia since the mid-90s. Hamilton shows that the Howard government has had a clear agenda for climate change during this time, but not one that many Aussies would approve of.

Hamilton starts with details of the power-brokers in Australia who try to prevent government action on climate change. It’s a lot like the Four Corners expose from last year, The Greenhouse Mafia. Then there’s an explanation of where Australia’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from and the consequences for us, as well as the ethical implications of this global problem.

The next section of the book gets to the point. Hamilton explains how the Howard government threatened to withdraw from the first Kyoto Protocol negotiations unless we got a special deal (the inclusion of land-clearing emissions) and permission to increase emissions. After we got this cushy deal, Howard refused to ratify the agreement. The rest of the world were not happy, Jan, and the refusal of Australia and the US to join in caused a 5 year delay before Kyoto could come into force.

When the Kyoto agreement finally got underway in 2004, the Howard government tried to discredit it and undermine the second round of negotiations. Because of this, Australia will be restricted to observer status only in 2013 when the second phase of Kyoto is organised. Understandably, other nations feel that if we don’t think Kyoto is a good idea, then we shouldn’t bother showing up for meetings.

Finally, the book shows how the Howard government has tried to deal with the majority of Aussies who want more action on climate change. So far they’ve:

• raised the idea of nuclear power, which didn’t go down well with most Aussies,
• started the Asia-Pacific 6 group, which died when the US refused to fund it, and
• created a carbon-trading task group, which copied what was already being created by the Kyoto deals.

Hamilton takes a jab at environmental groups and the Australian public, for not speaking up sooner. Later he has a go at Tim Flannery for promoting individual action as a solution instead of government policy. I can’t remember Hamilton being active on environmental issues before anyone else figured it out, and I think he misunderstands Flannery’s position. This finger-wagging is a strange addition, and I think Hamilton would’ve done better to stick to political history.

Recommended?
If you’re going to claim that the Prime Minister has sabotaged the Kyoto processes and prevented climate-change action within Australia, then you’d better be able to back it up with solid facts or you’ll end up looking like a conspiracy theorist. Hamilton documents everything, and makes it easy for anyone to confirm his claims. He lists the facts, with supporting statistics, graphs, references to published material and so on.

The disadvantage of this is that it’s pretty dry reading. However, Hamilton is probably aiming for a narrower audience: journalists, academics, lobbyists and people with the background to understand and take in the amount of detail he presents. If you’re part of this target audience, or have an interest in politics, recent history and the environment, then you’ll find Scorcher both relevant and important.

I know it’s an important topic, but it’s not fun to pick up a book just to find out more of the dishonesty of politicians and businessmen, and how their actions make the rest of the world think we’re selfish and ignorant. And it’s not exactly surprising information. I’m glad I read it, but I’m a bit reluctant to recommend it to other people! If you’re a casual reader with an interest in the environment, this probably isn’t the book for you.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 8:25 pm and is filed under climate change, politics, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.