Rudd's warm Kyoto reception
Matthew Franklin and Siobhain Ryan | December 04, 2007
KEVIN Rudd has ratified the Kyoto Protocol as the first formal act of his Government, ending Australia's international isolation on climate change.
Within hours of being officially sworn in as the nation's 26th prime minister, Mr Rudd held his first executive council meeting with Governor-General Michael Jeffery, who agreed with his request that Australia ratify the decade-old protocol.
News of the ratification spread quickly, sparking a sustained burst of applause on the floor at the UN climate change conference in Bali, which Mr Rudd will attend next week on his first overseas trip as Prime Minister.
Many delegates rose to their feet to applaud the ratification, and senior Australian delegation member Howard Bamsey, from the Department for the Environment and Water Resources, was forced to wait about a minute before completing his statement to the assembly.
Australia had already been on target to deliver its obligation under the Kyoto pact, which will require it to limit growth in CO2 emissions to an 8 per cent increase above 1990 levels over the period from 2008-12.
But the ratification, which will become formal 90 days after the documents are lodged with the UN, will strengthen Mr Rudd's hand when he joins delegates from 189 nations at the Bali summit, which will hammer out emissions arrangements for the post-Kyoto period.
Mr Rudd will be joined in Bali by his new Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, and Environment Minister, Peter Garrett.
Until yesterday, Australia and the US were the only major economies that had refused to ratify the protocol.
Former prime minister John Howard insisted no pact could be meaningful without the involvement of the world's largest emitters, such as the US, China and India.
But Mr Rudd campaigned hard on Kyoto ratification in the November 24 election, adamant that Australia needed to demonstrate its will to seriously tackle climate change.
"The Kyoto Protocol is considered to be the most far-reaching agreement on environment and sustainable development ever adopted," Mr Rudd said late yesterday.
"Australia's official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country's efforts to fight climate change domestically and with the international community."
Mr Rudd said his Government would do everything it could to help Australia meet its Kyoto obligations.
Its plans included setting a target to reduce emissions by 60per cent on 2000 levels by 2050, establishing a national emissions trading scheme by 2010 and setting a 20 per cent target for renewable energy use by 2020 to drive demand for use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
But Nicholas Stern, whose report for the British Government last year warned urgent action needed to be taken to combat climate change, called on Australia to make deeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions.
Sir Nicholas called on Australia to set a target of cutting emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, instead of the 60 per cent target nominated by the Rudd Government.
He called on countries such as Australia and the US to promote new technology, such as the capture and storage of carbon. But he said it was better that countries start with targets of 75 per cent to 80per cent emissions reductions.
"If you set out on a 60 per cent reduction, and my guess is that Australians are a creative lot, they would be able to see their way to really cutting back, and then to raise the target to 80 per cent would probably be quite feasible," he said.
Environmentalists yesterday welcomed Mr Rudd's move as a vital first step toward dealing with climate change.
"By refusing until now to ratify Kyoto, Australia has been a spanner in the works of the international community in avoiding dangerous climate change," said Greg Bourne, chief executive of environment group WWF Australia. "The Rudd Government has pulled out that spanner, propelling Australia from a laggard to a leader."
Mr Bourne said Australia's signing would send a strong message to the US.
But the Minerals Council of Australia said the ratification, while symbolic for Labor, would not advance the cause of tackling global warming.
"For us, not ratifying was never an issue about cost," said chief executive Mitch Hooke, labelling the protocol as "second-rate".
"It was all about whether or not (Kyoto) could actually effect real outcomes." Mr Hooke said it was more important to focus on signing up developing nations to the pact, to underpin targets with science, and to use markets and technology to help meet targets.
"There's no point in running Australia's economy into the ground for a target that is justfanciful," Mr Hooke said.
A report released by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in the week before the election revealed greenhouse gases from Kyoto's 41 industrialised and transition countries were approaching "an all-time high" in 2005, for when the latest figures are available.
Despite the upturn, however, the UNFCCC said the Kyoto signatories were together projected to meet their target of cutting emissions by 5 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012, although most of these cuts were the result of the economic collapse of Eastern European countries at the end of the Cold War.
Australia's greenhouse emissions in 2005 were about 25.6 per cent above 1990 levels but the figure fell to 4.5 per cent when the effect of bans on land-clearing was included. This put Australia on track to meet its target.
Greenpeace congratulated the new Government on the ratification but urged it to work on ways to begin the "inevitable" switch away from coal to other energy sources. "Kevin Rudd must now get serious about cutting Australia's greenhouse emissions, which means confronting our addiction to coal," said Greenpeace head of campaigns Steve Campbell.
A report released yesterday by the Institute for Sustainable Futures, made up of a coalition of non-government groups, suggests Australia's ratification of the Kyoto pact was made easier because it was one of the few countries allowed to count greenhouse gases from land-clearing towards its 1990 starting level.
"Australia has so far taken little serious action to stabilise its greenhouse gas emissions," said the report, put together by the Climate Action Network, Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, Oxfam Australia, World Vision Australia and WWF Australia. Australia now had a "moral responsibility" to adopt a steep target for emission cuts because of its high per-capita contribution to climate change.
Australia's position at next week's Bali meeting will represent the first major change in itsinternational representations under the Rudd Government. Only a week ago, Australia united with Canada to torpedo a bid to build binding targets for emission cuts into a declaration from the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting in Uganda.
Additional reporting: Matthew Warren, Stephen Fitzpatrick
theaustralian.news.com.au |
