Australia Isolates Itself at Climate Change Negotiations Yet Again

Chain Reaction magazine #99, March 2007

Stephanie Long

In Nairobi, Kenya last November, nations around the world commenced annual negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol. To coincide with the beginning of the negotiations, Australian environment minister Ian Campbell issued a media statement claiming that the Kyoto signatories agreed that a new agreement was necessary as the existing Kyoto Protocol was not working. Campbell boldly stated that Australia was going to Nairobi to commence negotiations on a “New Kyoto”.

However there is no “New Kyoto” and the only occasion it was mentioned at all in Nairobi was in Senator Campbell's four-minute High Level Statement to a near empty room at 8pm. The Australian government proved yet again to be completely out of step with the 168 nations that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and are committed to thrashing out commitments for emissions reduction, technology transfer and adaptation funding for the second phase of Kyoto which starts after 2012.

Claiming that there was “great enthusiasm for Australia's position on New Kyoto” in the face of such meaningless engagement in the international negotiations indicates the real intention of this media stunt: to mislead the Australian people into believing that the government was actually participating in any meaningful form in the Kyoto Protocol.

A senior Australian public servant, Howard Bamsey, is co-chairing the “Dialogue on long-term cooperative action to address climate change by enhancing implementation of the Convention” (the 'Dialogue'), which is a two year process that began in 2005 at UN climate talks in Montreal. The Dialogue is simply a forum to raise issues and discuss ideas that explicitly will not result in any binding agreements on climate change actions. It is this chairing role which the Australian government is basing its media spin on, but in reality this role has little substance to the development of future Kyoto Protocol agreements.

The Australian government's prime criticism of the Kyoto Protocol is now focused on the lack of emission reduction commitments taken by rapidly industrialising countries such as China. Conversely, on a per capita basis, Australia's remain the highest in the world at 27 tonnes per person (carbon dioxide equivalents) whereas China's per capita emissions are a mere three tonnes per person. China is strongly committed to reducing the greenhouse intensity of their economy with an ambitious mandatory renewable energy target of 15% by 2020. This vastly overshadows Australia's paltry 2% mandatory renewable energy target by 2010.

The Kyoto Protocol is at a very sensitive and vulnerable stage as the international community is preparing to embark on a new round of commitments and burden sharing for the post-2012 period. Climate science and economics has greatly improved since the first commitments under the Kyoto Protocol were negotiated which indicate the necessity to radically upscale the level of emission reductions and invest in adaptation for the most vulnerable nations. It is deeply unhelpful that Australia continues to attempt to distract these essential negotiations with selfish short-sighted economic aims in mind.

Stern Review

Australia's continuing inadequacy on both domestic and international climate change policies marks a stark contrast with recent warnings about climate change, such as those in the recent 'Stern Review on the Economic Impacts of Climate Change' that identify Australia as the most vulnerable developed nation to climate change. The Stern Review estimated that unabated climate change of over the coming century will result in $3 trillion in losses and damages. The World Bank has estimated that climate change will result in $10-$40 billion in damages alone each year.

The Stern Review concludes that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is cheaper than absorbing the costs of the impacts of climate change. Considering that the government has already spent over $1 billion in drought relief for farmers this year, these costs should be front and centre of the Australian government's motivation to ratify Kyoto and to contribute instead of harming negotiations for the Protocol's continuation.

Even more striking is the statement made by Indonesia during the Nairobi talks that 200 of their islands are at risk of being lost due to sea-level rise which could displace 100 million people (half the population of Indonesia) by 2050-2070. Representatives of the Maasai peoples, nomadic herders that live on the Northern Kenya plains, reported that the past three years of drought has lead to losses of 10 million head of cattle. Without cattle, Maasai are without food and without income.

Australia was not alone in failing to recognise the significance of the Stern Review, nor able to hear the many examples of how climate change is devastating the livelihoods and health of communities across Africa. It was extremely disappointing that further work was not completed on a thorough review of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and countries didn't take the opportunity to put on the table initial emissions reduction figures for industrialised countries.

The urgency and economic imperative to act on climate change has never been more apparent. Industralised countries must be prepared to accept emissions reduction targets of 30% by 2020 and as much as 90% by 2050. The international community must continue to recognise the contribution of countries of the global south in efforts to reduce the greenhouse intensity of their economic growth and development. In addition, the impacts of climate change on developing countries who have not been historically responsible for human-induced climate change must be compensated for with adaptation funds.

All of these obligations can and must be packaged into the post-2012 phase of Kyoto to ensure that governments meet the obligation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of stablisation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before we hit dangerous climate change that threatens ecosystems, food security and sustainable development.

As the Tuvaluan delegate said in Nairobi, “where else in the world have we been asked to decide the future of whole nations?”

Stephanie Long observed the two-week UN negotiations in Nairobi with a team of climate change campaigners from Friends of the Earth International.