AUSTRALIA: Climate change high on APEC agenda
Updated
Both sides of Australian politics are calling for the Asia Pacific summit to confront climate change, although disagreements remain on the best way to deal with greenhouse gas emissions. Prime Minister John Howard says the APEC summit in Sydney next week should set a long-term aspirational goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. While Mr Howard argues that the current Kyoto Protocol is flawed and ineffective, the main opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd has repeated his party's promise to ratify the United Nations agreement if he's elected.
Presenter: Graeme Dobell
Speakers: Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard; Australia's Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd
DOBELL: As chairman of the Asia Pacific summit, the Prime Minister, John Howard wrote to the other 20 APEC members in March calling for the leaders to break new ground to deal with climate change. Mr Howard says both the United States President and the Japanese Prime Minister have signalled their determination to take action.
HOWARD: In part through Australia's efforts, and in APEC, we can see now the outline of an emerging consensus of how best to tackle climate change - one that moves decisively away from the rigid, outdated and ineffective models of the past. The biggest global political challenge on climate change is to build bridges between the industrialised world and developing countries which we know will account for the majority of future greenhouse gas emissions.
DOBELL: Australia's Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, says the summit must set concrete emissions targets as APEC languishes behind the European Union and the G8, the Group of Eight, on tackling the economic impact of climate change. Mr Rudd says if APEC fails to embrace real action on climate change, then the Asia Pacific economic grouping has little future.
RUDD: Climate change is important right across the Asia Pacific region. We have, of course, China itself. We have other economies which are significant emitters. We also have the United States. This presents a remarkable opportunity for Australia to show leadership on climate change. Mr Howard has been in the past, a follower not a leader, on climate change. It's time to turn that on its head. Australia, therefore, must commit to a program of bold action itself nationally, and through that, put a bold agenda on the table for APEC leaders when they meet in Sydney next week. This is in Australia's national interest. It's in the region's interest, and it's also in the global interest.
DOBELL: Australia and the United States are the only two developed countries not to have ratified the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Mr Howard says Kyoto fails because developing economies such as China have no obligations to cut emissions.
HOWARD: I believe APEC can help build consensus on a way forward that avoids the pitfalls of the Kyoto model. Kyoto divided the world into two groups, and required concerted action from only one of them and it's highly prescriptive approach threatened to make that division permanent. In short, it was a recipe for a structurally flawed and ineffective global response to climate change.
DOBELL: Mr Rudd replies that APEC must recognise the United Nations process - Kyoto - as the principal forum for effective action. And he says if Labor wins the Australian election due in October or November, it'll ratify the Kyoto protocol to show good faith in the global negotiating process.
RUDD: When it comes to our attitude to Kyoto ratification, it's clear cut. One of the first acts that an incoming Labor Government would be to ratify Kyoto because we want to be part of the global solution, not just part of the global problem on climate change.
DOBELL: The Prime Minister's aim in Sydney is to get what he calls a new APEC consensus to provide political momentum for the United States approach to the United Nations climate conference in Bali in December. Mr Howard says APEC should agree - for the first time - to what he calls a long term aspirational goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
HOWARD: The key task in Sydney is to give political direction to the shape of a future framework for climate change action that is truly global. Australia's decision to put this on APEC's agenda this year means that, outside of EU processes, this will be the largest group of world leaders to focus on the issue for a long time.
DOBELL: Mr Rudd says Australia must embrace firm targets for itself, to cut emissions by the year 2050 to about 60 percent of what they were at the start of this decade. The Labor leader says Australia should argue for similar targets to be accepted by other developed countries, with developing countries agreeing to graduated targets. He says APEC will be judged on its climate change outcomes.
RUDD: For it to be a good outcome, it's got to have some significant benchmarks. One, we need to have a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a realistic target. And Labor, of course, has a clear cut policy on that. Secondly, we also need to need to make advances when it comes to an emissions trading regime, cap in trade, not just nationally within Australia, but on top of that to ensure that what is done nationally is compatible with what is emerging as the international emissions trading regime as well. We think we've been behind the eight ball on that.
