CLIMATE CHANGE-AUSTRALIA: Using ‘Spin’ to Flip the Kyoto Debate

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Dec 10 2004 (IPS) - The Australian government’s delegation to next week’s ministerial meeting at the on- going conference of parties to the Kyoto climate change agreement could get a frosty reception, after making misleading claims that the country is set to achieve substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over the longer term.

Non-government organisations that met ahead of 10th negotiating session of the parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which began on Dec. 6 in Buenos Aires, have awarded Australia the first ‘Fossil of the Day’ prize for exaggerating its claims of substantial progress in curbing carbon emissions.

Greenpeace Energy Campaign leader Catherine Fitzpatrick accused the Australian minister for environment and heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, of attempting to deceive those attending the conference and the Australian public with ”spin”.

Ahead of the conference, Campbell released a report claiming that Australia will meet its commitment of greenhouse emissions in 2012, being eight percent higher than the 1990 baseline.

”Our approach will ensure we meet our 2008-2012 target, while providing the framework for the development and deployment of technologies to facilitate the much greater reductions in emissions that will be required over the longer term,” claimed Campbell.

While the minister is painting an upbeat picture, the detailed projections in the Australian Greenhouse Office, a government agency, are much more sobering over the long term.

The ‘Tracking to the Kyoto Target 2004’ report identified that a ”substantial decrease” in emissions had occurred ”due to reduced forest cover removal”. While environmentalists agree that moves by the state governments of New South Wales and Queensland could curtail greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing by as much as two-thirds, they accuse the federal government of using the windfall gain to mask the dramatic growth in emissions from power stations and the transport sector.

The report itself projects that by 2020 emissions from the energy sector – predominantly coal fired power stations – will have increased by 70 percent over the 1990 level. In the transport sector – with approximately half the emissions from cars and truck based freight also contributing substantially – emissions in 2020 are projected to be 61 percent higher than the 1990 level.

On Feb. 16 the Kyoto Protocol will come into force with the 129 countries that have ratified the convention legally bound by its provisions.

While the Australian government acknowledges that the evidence of climate change is real, it has joined the U.S. in refusing to ratify the Kyoto treaty while insisting it is determined to meet the 2012 target it negotiated allowing an eight percent increase over the 1990 base year.

Campbell argues against ratifying the treaty on the basis of two reasons. First, he says, it would both damage the Australian economy. Secondly, he adds, larger cuts in emissions would be required later this century – far greater than the targets set for the first round obligations under the convention.

But an indisputable fact remains. Once the treaty comes into force, parties that have refused to ratify the convention will be excluded from further negotiations over its implementation.

At next week’s ministerial meeting at the conference in Argentina, discussions on the appropriate targets for the period beyond 2012 will commence – with many scientists arguing that a 60 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions are required by 2050.

In an attempt to prevent Australia from being further isolated, Campbell also flagged that while in Buenos Aires he will offer to ”promote climate change cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific region.”

Environmentalists argue that Australia won’t be taken seriously within the region or at home as long as it is remains hostile to the only international process for addressing the problem. Greenpeace’s Fitzpatrick argues that what is needed are ”real policies and real measures to shift us away from polluting coal power towards clean, renewable energy.”

In the meantime, while it was the decision of Russia to ratify the Kyoto treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Chief Economic Adviser, Andrei Illarionov, has been touring Australia sponsored by the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank funded in part by mining and coal power companies.

In an opinion column published in ‘The Australian’, the national flagship newspaper of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, Illarionov adopted a more extreme position than Campbell.

”The fact is the Kyoto protocol that will be a global treaty within months is based on fraudulent science. Assertions that global temperatures are higher today than any time in the past are completely false. Fluctuations in climate patterns have existed for millions of years – for all earth history,” he wrote.

”The message for Australians is clear: continued economic growth and rising living standards or make your future and the future of your children a victim of Kyoto-ism, one of the most aggressive, intrusive, destructive ideologies since the collapse of communism and fascism,” he argued.

The Executive Director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton, is bemused by Illarionov’s outburst.

”Illarionov’s criticisms of Kyoto and denying climate change have become even more strident now that he has been over-ruled by his boss,” he told IPS.

The Australia Institute, a centre-left think tank, disputes the government’s claims that ratifying the Kyoto Protocol will affect the Australian economy.

It points to a 2002 consultant’s report commissioned by the Australian government which estimates that by 2010 Australia’s economy would decline by 0.40 percent if it opted out of ratifying the Kyoto agreement. On the other hand, the report stated, the country’s economy would decline by 0.33 percent if Canberra supported the treaty.

According to Hamilton, if the estimates are accurate, they ”demolish any remaining rationale for Australia’s continued refusal to sign up to the treaty.”