Global warning for Howard

Australia branded Greenhouse pariah at Earth Summit

Jemima

Sydney

During the Earth Summit 11, in New York, at the end of June, Australia’s vociferous stand against the imposition of mandatory targets for the reduction of Greenhouse gas emis sions saw it branded a Greenhouse pariah - but this did not worry Prime Minister John Howard.

Instead of attending the Earth Summit as other world leaders did, he went to Washington where he emerged buoyed by his dis cussions with conservative congressmen and determined as ever to fight on until the all-important meeting in Kyoto, Japan, in December, when the western nations are supposed to sign on for specific reductions. The Pacific islands, vulnerable to the increased cyclonic activity, flooding and seawater inundation, a consequence of global warming, have been fighting for almost a decade for action on Greenhouse gas emissions. At Kyoto, the Europeans, with support from the developing world, will propose the industrialised nations commit themselves to cut emissions to 15 per cent below their 1990 levels by 2010. It’s a stance which scientists and environmentalists say will only make a small start in halting global warming - but it’s the best on offer.

Australia, once a leader on Greenhouse action, totally rejects the European proposal. Environment Minister Senator Robert Hill told the Earth Summit it would cost Australia 22 times as much as it would cost the Europeans to comply with those targets. The government’s economic modelling suggests even reaching the weaker target of 1990 level emissions by 2010 would cost SA9OOO (SUS64OO) for every Australian man woman and child. Within Australia, public opinion is divided. Howard’s supporters have branded the European position “self-serving and hypocritical”.

They say the Europeans have already drastically reduced their Greenhouse emissions for reasons unrelated to Greenhouse - in the UK by switching to gas power, in France to nuclear energy and in Germany by closing old and inefficient power plants from the former East Germany - making compliance much easier. The Europeans, they argue, are now using their position as a means of gaining economic leverage over other countries, like Australia, which has a lot of energy-gobbling industrie.

The government says 35 new major energy-intensive projects would be threatened if Australia had to work to the European tar gets and points out that the all-important jobs they promise would only go off-shore to a developing nation where environmental standards would be less rigorous. As a result, Australia is pushing a plan for different targets for different countries depending on capacity to pay - and it would not surprise anyone that Australia

would have least to pay.

Unfortunately for Howard, even his supporters are questioning his actions in the area of energy efficiency, which is a crucial com ponent of all strategies to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions. A Sydney Morning Herald editorial, while applauding Howard’s international stand, complained he had nothing but thin excuses when the government abolished the Energy Research and Development Corporation and cut funding to the National Energy Efficiency Programme in the last budget. Others point out that as Australia has done less than other countries in using building codes, appliance efficiency standards and vehicle fuel economy measures to improve energy efficiency it will, in fact, be easier for Australia to bring down its emissions. Worse still, 131 Australian economists, including 16 professors, have rejected the economics behind Howard’s special pleading on targets. They say policies are available to reduce Australia’s Greenhouse gas emissions without harming the economy and that the findings the Megabare economic modelling system used by the government are simply “wrong”. Megabare was developed by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) but was funded in part by the very coal and energy interests which have most to gain by Australia’s refusal to agree to binding Greenhouse targets.

“Australia seems to be heading for diplomatic humiliation in Kyoto,” said Dr Clive Hamilton from the Australia Institute on behalf of the 131 economists. Diplomatic humiliation is certainly what Senator Hill had to put up with at the Earth Summit.

Members of the British and US delegations were so angered, they took the unusual step of naming a nation in their criticisms. British PM Tony Blair nominated climate change as the most important international issue. “No country can opt out of global warming or fence in its own private climate,” he said “We need common action to save our common environment.” US President Bill Clinton was also forthright. He promised a “strong American com mitment to realistic and binding limits that will significantly reduce our emission of Greenhouse gases”. But, he added, “in the United States, in order to do our part, we must first convince the American people and the Congress that the climate change prob lem is real and imminent”. It is this statement which gives Howard hope. Clinton needs a two-thirds majority to impose binding tar gets but conservative leaders, such as US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gringrich, told Howard their sup port was growing and there may now be a two-thirds majority in the senate against binding targets for industrialised nations unless developing nations are also bound. In Australia, the energy lobby is pulling out all stops to swing public opinion its way.

Despite the credibility gap, with his all-important economic statistics and the real chance that Australia will lose its reputation as a good global citizen and even face trade sanctions if it rejects binding targets in Kyoto, Howard is unmoved. Perhaps Razali Ismail, president of the UN General Assembly, was speaking about Australia when he told the Earth Summit; “Five years on from Rio, we face a major recession; not economic but a recession of the spirit, a recession of the very political will essential for

catalysing real change.” ■