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  BBC 31 Oct 06
Australia defends climate stance

Yahoo News 1 Nov 06
Australia says Kyoto a symbolic failure
By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia, a major coal exporter and producer of greenhouse gases, said on Wednesday it would use new technologies to make fossil-fuels cleaner and tackle climate change, but continued to reject the Kyoto Protocol.

Prime Minister John Howard said Kyoto was mere symbolism as it did not include major greenhouse emitters such as India, the U.S. and China.

He said an alliance of the world's biggest polluters -- Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States -- called the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, offered a more practical way to fight climate change.

"Symbolism will not clean up the air, symbolism will not clean up greenhouse gas emissions, practical methods will. The thing that matters is doing things," Howard said.

Under the Asia-Pacific Partnership formed in 2005, Howard said Australia would spend A$60 million ($46 million) on 42 projects, such as solar and clean coal, which separates greenhouse gases from coal-fired power station emissions for disposal underground or in water.

The government last week said it would spend A$75 million on the world's largest solar power plant, which would start operating in 2013. Howard has also said nuclear energy may one day be an option for Australia.

Howard's announcement came a day after a British report warned that failure to tackle climate change could see the world economy facing a 1830s-style Depression.

Australia, along with the United States, refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol, aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, arguing it would unfairly impact the country's fossil fuel-reliant economy.

Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter.

Howard said Kyoto favored British and European interests. "We have to be careful in what we do that we serve the interests of Australia. The interest of Europe and the interests of Australia are not the same," he said.

Elliott Morley, a former British Environment Minister and U.K. Special Envoy on Climate, said the opposition of Australia and the United States to Kyoto was disappointing.

"If we all take that attitude, then there'll be no progress at all and we will just sleepwalk to oblivion," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Environmentalists are critical of the Asia Pacific Partnership, which represents almost half of the world's greenhouse emissions, arguing its actions are voluntary.

"Until Australia commits to global action and indicates that it is prepared to enter a regime of enforceable targets for the period beyond Kyoto, the prime minister can't be taken seriously," Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne said.

Kyoto obliges about 40 nations to cut emissions by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Australia, the world's 10th largest greenhouse gas emitter, negotiated a rise in emissions, setting a Kyoto target of limiting emissions to 108 percent of 1990 levels.

BBC 31 Oct 06
Australia defends climate stance

Treasurer Peter Costello has said there is "no point" Australia signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change unless it applies to China and India too.

Australia, like the US, has refused to ratify the Kyoto agreement, but is set to face increasing pressure to do so in the light of a new hard-hitting study.

A report by former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern warned of severe problems if global warming was ignored. If there was no action now, he said, the world would face a huge depression.

The UN has also just released new data showing that rich countries have made little overall progress in reducing the production of gases blamed for global warming.

But Mr Costello said the claims had to be kept in perspective, and he insisted that Australia was on track to reduce its emissions.

'Significant challenge'

"There's no point in Australia meeting its emissions target if you're going to have major emitters such as China and India, which are increasing every year their emissions by more than the total of Australia's," Mr Costello told reporters.

He denied claims made by the Stern report that global warming was the greatest market failure the world had seen.

"It will be a significant challenge over the course of this century. But it's not on a scale of unprecedented challenges," he said.

He added that if Australia closed down all its power stations today, China would probably replace them in one year.

Australian Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane backed him up, saying that Australia was on track to meet its Kyoto Protocol target anyway, and did not need to sign the agreement.

He told Australian TV: "The sort of things that Sir Nicholas Stern is saying has to be done in the Western world are already being done here in Australia."

"Australia will be the only country in the world without nuclear energy that will reach the Kyoto target."

But Opposition Labor Party leader Kim Beazley said that if he came to power he would sign the Kyoto agreement.
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