Australia denies deal with US risks Kyoto pact
Date: 04-Mar-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Environmental groups have accused Australia of jeopardising the Kyoto pact by signing a climate action partnership with the United States, which has already rejected the 1997 protocol and drawn up a domestic alternative.
But Foreign Minister Alexander Downer denied the agreement with Washington, signed last week, indicated Australia was backing away from the Kyoto deal to reduce greenhouse gases which are believed to contribute to rising global temperatures.
"This is an agreement for Australia and the United States to work together on the science of dealing with the climate change issue," Downer told a news conference.
"Contrary to the suggestions of some people that this is an attempt to torpedo the Kyoto protocol, this is actually an attempt to work with the United States, which has enormous scientific sophistication, to ensure from a scientific point of view, not just from a political point of view, issues of greenhouse gas emissions are addressed."
But opposition politicians and environmentalists said the partnership was another example of Australia's unwillingness to crack down on its own rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The Australian government is under pressure from the carbon-intensive industries like mining to back away from the pact which commits developed nations to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.
Australia, the world's largest coal exporter, won the right to increase its emissions by eight percent above 1990 levels but the government has not yet said if it will ratify the treaty, arguing it will not work without including all major industrialised nations, such as the United States.
President George W. Bush last year shunned the Kyoto pact, saying it would hurt the economy, but presented a voluntary rather than mandatory plan in mid-February to slow the growth of heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.
Australia, while not abandoning the Kyoto protocol, argues it has a lot in common with Washington in wanting to find practical approaches to climate change which will not harm developed nations' economies.
A key U.S. and Australian criticism of the Kyoto treaty is that it does not impose reduction targets on developing nations.
