I enjoyed my visit to Australia several years ago. The country, people and culture is one that I personally believe is one that fits my life. My father visited Australia after WWII and always spoke so highly of the people. My visit reinforced what he saw 50 years previously….Great People. Unfortunately, I was expecting more in their Cap and trade position as a country… I personally see Australia a leader in the environment.   While I know the US will not take a strong position based on our consumerism….I was hoping a county like Australia would have the courage.  I know it is hard to make compromises…..balancing a growing economy and the environment is a challenge.

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• • Fred Pearce
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 December 2009 17.51 GMT
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Whatever happens in Copenhagen this month, Australia’s climate policy will still be in a mess. Photograph: Reuters

Australia is the hottest and driest continent on Earth. Parts have been embroiled in record drought for the past decade, leaving reservoirs empty and agriculture decimated. Things got so bad last week that thousands of camels besieged a small town in the Northern Territory in search of water. Even the “ships of the desert” couldn’t cope.

Yet, while many Aussies embrace a love of the outdoors both in body and spirit, something in the frontier ethic of the “lucky country” still leads some to peer at the horizon and declare: “Mate, we don’t believe in climate change.” Maybe they have been out in the sun too long, for the country is living on the edge.

Aussie scientists were among the first to warn about global warming. Back in 1988, they printed off posters showing the fin-shaped roof of the Sydney Opera House poking out of a blue sea.

But Australia also has a history of climate denial. Twelve years ago at the Kyoto climate negotiations, other rich nations promised cuts in carbon emissions. But Australia won permission to increase its emissions by 8%. And even that wasn’t good enough for the prime minister John Howard, who eventually pulled out of the Kyoto protocol with George W Bush.

Recently, the Labour prime minister Kevin Rudd rejoined Kyoto. But the sceptics are unrepentant. The Aussie geologist Ian Plimer is the latest international pin-up among climate sceptics.

Why do the deniers hold such sway? For one thing, Australians have the highest per capita carbon emissions of any major developed country thanks to its sprawling suburbs and heavy coal use. According to figures submitted by Canberra to the UN, Australia’s emissions from burning fossil fuel have risen by 30% from 1990 to 2007 – more even than the US.

Also, Australia is by some way the world’s largest exporter of coal, the world’s dirtiest fuel. They are the boys with the black stuff. Giant ports like Gladstone and Newcastle export ship out enough coal each year to put more than half a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air. When the Chinese coal mines can’t keep up with domestic demand, they phone Digger.

Australia’s industrialists have lobbied loudly against any limits on their carbon emissions. Last year, the Business Council of Australia called Rudd’s cap-and-trade climate plan a “company killer”, and declared war on the policy. Now they have seen off the leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, because he backed the Rudd plan.

They will be pleased with themselves. But whatever happens in Copenhagen this month, Australia’s climate policy will still be in a mess. Either the world adopts tough emissions cuts – in which case demand for Australian coal will shrink and the country will face painful economic reforms to cut its soaring domestic emissions. Or the world fails to come up with tough emissions cuts – in which case, say its scientists, there is a real risk of the entire nation becoming uninhabitable.

I hope in Copenhagen someone will be able to get the rest of the world to see we are running out of time. For me make sure your house is at least 20 feet above sea level.
By: Clean Skies News, Published: 12/02/09 12:01pm
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd heads to the climate talks in Copenhagen next week without a cap-and-trade plan locked in.

The Australian Senate — strongly divided on the issue of man-made climate change — has voted down the government’s plan for a carbon market as means of lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

LIBERAL PARTY

Liberals – Australia’s main opposition party — engineered the defeat of draft legislation for a European-style cap-and-trade system that Rudd hoped to see pass before talks in Denmark. He wanted Australia to become one of the first countries to install a cap-and-trade system.

Rudd, who was returning from a meeting in Washington with President Obama when the vote took place, had no immediate comment. But acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard criticized the vote.

“Today the climate change extremists and deniers in the Liberal party have stopped this nation from taking decisive action on climate change,” she said.

COMPROMISE FAILS

Former Liberal leader Malcom Turnbull agreed to support the compromise plan in exchange for an aid package for affected industries. But that caused a rift within the party, and he was ousted in favor of Tony Abbott, who has called the idea that humans can affect climate change as “absolute crap.” Abbott won out with an argument that Australia should not adopt an emissions trading system before the rest of the world.

EARLY ELECTIONS?

Because the bill’s defeat reflects a deadlock between Australia’s two chambers of parliament, the constitution allows Rudd to call general elections on the issue. But he has consistently said he does not want early elections, and opinion polls suggest his government is under no threat if it waits until later in the year when elections are due.

Gillard said the government would reintroduce the bill to Parliament in February to give the opposition one more chance to change its mind – signaling no elections would come before then at the earliest.

Australia is a small greenhouse gas polluter in global terms, but one of the worst per capita because it relies heavily for its electricity on its abundant reserves of coal. As the driest continent after Antarctica, it is also considered one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change.

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