Australia and US plan pact as Kyoto alternative
Australia will soon announce a new greenhouse gas emission pact with the US, China, India and South Korea as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, the environment minister said today.
While 140 countries ratified the 1997 Kyoto agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Australia and the US have refused because developing countries weren’t required to adopt emission targets.
Australian environment minister Ian Campbell said Canberra and Washington had for the past 12 months been negotiating a new multi-lateral agreement targeting rapidly developing countries which pump out large amounts of greenhouse gas.
Labelling the Kyoto Protocol ineffective and a failure, Campbell said it was vital for developed countries to create and deploy modern technologies to help energy-hungry Asia-Pacific economies such as China and India slash emissions.
“We know that this is the answer - we know that the Kyoto Protocol is a failure in terms of saving the climate – we have to do better,” Campbell told reporters.
Campbell was commenting after a newspaper reported that the five nations, which account for 40% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, had struck a US-driven secret alliance called the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate.
Prime Minister John Howard discussed the strategy with US President George Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when he visited Washington last week, The Australian newspaper reported today.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a meeting with Bush on the same subject on the same day, the newspaper said.
Campbell refused to say whether Australia has yet signed the deal, saying details would be announced “in the very near future”.
The opposition Labour Party called on the government to immediately ratify the Kyoto pact. Its leader, Kim Beazley, dismissed the new agreement, saying: “It is nothing. It’s spin.”
Greenpeace, which blockaded an Australian coal port yesterday to protest Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels, agreed the Kyoto Protocol was the best option.
“Environment minister Ian Campbell concedes a comprehensive agreement involving all major emitters is needed,” Greenpeace energy campaigner Catherine Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
“Skulking around making secretive, selective deals will not accomplish this. Signing up to the Kyoto Protocol will,” she added.
Australia has refused to ratify the Kyoto pact on the ground that it could damage an economy heavily reliant on coal and gas exports while doing nothing to curb the increasing levels of pollution billowing from developing countries such as China and India.
The US is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases followed by China.
The Bush administration has opposed regulating carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, contending that voluntary actions by industry are already reducing emissions growth, and to go further would harm the US economy and raise energy prices.
Earlier this month in Scotland, the G8 summit leaders bowed to US pressure by approving a declaration on climate change that avoided taking any concrete steps to fight global warming, such as setting targets or timetables for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol, which went into force in February, imposes legally binding requirements on 35 industrialised states to cut emissions of greenhouse gases an average of 5% below 1990 levels.
Average global temperatures rose about 1 degree in the 20th century, and scientists say that has contributed to the thawing of the permafrost, rising ocean levels and extreme weather. Experts say further increases could seriously disrupt ecosystems, agriculture and human lifestyles.
