‘We didn't know exactly what we needed to do': The climate change battle in 1994

The Keating government wrestled with the politics and policies of climate change, not least in terms of how Australia might retain its leverage in international forums where its reputation was slipping through 1994.

A Queensland farmer and his dog stand alongside a dried up dam in November 1994.  

It also dawned on Cabinet that the cost for Australia to meet climate change commitments was far higher than those faced by European and North American nations.

Cabinet was advised in September that the commitments in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were already proving insufficient to stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system".

Further, international pressure was mounting to strengthen those commitments. Yet even within the formula negotiated to recognise its status as an "emissions-intensive" economy, Australia was "only likely to achieve 46 to 53 percent" of its target by 2000.

Read Damien Murphy’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “‘We didn't know exactly what we needed to do': The climate change battle in 1994.”