Peter Garrett MP
19 July 2007

It’s a pleasure to speak to the Foreign Correspondents Association.

I note that the Prime Minister decided that this is not a worthy venue from a vote pulling perspective. I have to say from a Labor perspective speaking to the world’s media is core business.

There has been pronounced activity around global warming in Australia this week and I’d like to make a few observations about the Government’s record on climate change, and APEC which will be held here in September.

Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull is fighting a rearguard action to sell the Howard Government’s climate change policy to the Australian public.

He is like the boy with his finger in the dyke. His job is to hold his part of the show together until after the election.

But pressure is mounting and the cracks are showing.

And unfortunately for the Environment Minister, his Prime Minister, who we say has been asleep at the wheel for 11 years on this issue, has now decided he definitely does not want his “climate change” Minister driving the government bus.

It will be the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet running the emissions trading task group and the processes for putting in place the policies for the trading scheme, such as it is.

And the Treasurer, Peter Costello, is doing the “too little, too late” economic modelling. I suspect that is why Mr Turnbull has been a bit cranky in media interviews over the past day or so.

The Government’s inaction on climate change over the last 11 years cannot be disputed with reference to facts or achievements.

And the Government’s plan for the future is not any more considered than its past record. Our emissions are rising unabated, which is not an unexpected result from a policy devised by climate sceptics.

Among the Government’s more desperate claims is that Australia is a world leader when it comes to climate change.

Unfortunately, Australia is not a world leader. We reneged on the Kyoto protocol, we signed it but did not ratify it, and no other country regards Australia as a guiding light.

Certainly the Minister cannot name any such country.

Quite the reverse; Stavros Dimas, the European Environment Commissioner, recently said that Australia has “a negative attitude on international negotiations” and stated, “I can really not understand why Australia has not ratified Kyoto.”

Richard Worthington, South Africa Climate Action Network, said in December last year: “Of course we would like our government to publicly distance itself from the Australian rejection of (Kyoto) at every opportunity.”

The Government’s long held ‘we will meet Kyoto target’ defence is also coming undone.

While Mr Turnbull variously says “we are on track to meet the target, we will meet the target, we are committed to the Kyoto target”, the Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag last year (13/11/2006) when he said:


The truth is that Australia will in all likelihood miss its Kyoto target and yet Minister Turnbull is publicly trumpeting the exact opposite.

This is what the Australian Greenhouse Office reported in December 2006:


Recent analysis by The Climate Institute estimates that the real figure is more like 110%.

The Government likes to cite a huge amount of money it’s dedicated to climate change, their ever growing figure is somewhere over $3 billion now.

But this year’s Budget documents and Department of Environment documents show that about $850 million has actually been spent in the last 11 years.

And still our emissions are rising steeply.

The Australian Greenhouse Office is touted by the Minister as a world leading innovation. And indeed it was when it was established in 1998. But again, over time the Howard Government’s indifference to climate change rendered the AGO a show piece.

Stripped of its independent status in 2005, it was absorbed by the Department of Environment. (That’s the department not really involved any longer in major climate change policy.)

And this week we learn from the Government’s Climate Change Policy paper that the AGO is no longer the Australian Government's lead agency with responsibility for developing policy advice and delivering programmes in response to global climate change.

Now, its new role is to monitor and report to the UNFCCC and administer some domestic programs, as various branches within the department of environment.

So much for leading the way.

Asleep at the wheel

Australia’s scientists, our climatologists and our public service, particularly the Australian Greenhouse Office in the early years, were constantly sending wake up calls and potential climate change solutions to the Government.

Here are a few examples:

• Climate Change Scenarios and Managing the Scarce Water
• Resources of the Macquarie River - March 1998 
• Emissions Trading: Establishing the Boundaries - 1999 
• Emissions Trading: Issuing the Permits - 1999 
• Emissions Trading: Crediting the Carbon - 1999 
• Emissions Trading: Designing the Market - 1999 
• Early Greenhouse Action - June 1999 
• Encouraging Early Greenhouse Abatement Action - November 2000 
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading: Allocation of Permits - August 2000 
• Pathways and policies for the development of a national emissions trading system for Australia - 2002 
• Living with climate change - a national conference on climate change impacts and adaptation, Canberra, 2003  
• Living with climate change - an overview of potential climate change impacts on Australia, December 2002
  

And the list goes on …

These warnings and reports led Treasury and the Department of Environment in 2003 to produce a cabinet submission to establish an emissions trading scheme.

The Government responded by slamming the snooze button.

The Prime Minister rejected the cabinet submission from the Treasurer and the Environment Minister and also abolished the Australian Greenhouse Office’s work on emissions trading by disbanding the emissions trading team.

While the government snoozed, the following reports were issued:

• Economic Issues Relevant to Costing Climate Change Impacts - 2004
• Climate Change in the Cairns and Great Barrier Reef Region - 2004 
• Potential Effects of Global Warming on the Biota of the Australian Alps - 2004 
• Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability May 2006
  

The snooze function was still on until December 2006, when the public opinion polls woke the Government up and the Prime Minister rolled out of bed to commission the Task Group on Emissions Trading to start again.

Targets

I am sure you are familiar with the Howard Government’s reticence when it comes to climate change. The examples I gave before are evidence enough and the Government’s aversion to setting targets on this specific matter is the classic example.

It is perhaps the last line in the sand for the climate sceptics - they know that what gets measured gets done and that real targets will lead to real action.

Targets should be carefully set. Science tells us that to avoid dangerous climate change, we need to reduce emissions by at least 60% by 2050.

Labor has committed to this target.

Yet the Government on the other hand denies the reality of long-term scientifically derived targets and refuses to consider short-term targets before the election - even though they have ready access to all the resources necessary to make such an assessment.

Still the calls for action and targets are getting louder.

Just yesterday the National President of Engineers Australia, Rolfe Hartley, said:



Here’s a simple question for the Environment Minister that shouldn’t aggravate the Government’s fear of targets and action: When will the Government’s policies stop Australia’s emissions from rising?

The APEC opportunity

The Prime Minister talked up in May this year the forthcoming Sydney APEC meeting, saying:




As recently as Tuesday 26 June, the Prime Minister told the Australian Financial Review that negotiation on climate change “doesn't necessarily have to be within the UN framework".

But by Tuesday this week, the Prime Minister was talking APEC down having been interrupted by reality and obliged to acknowledge the primacy of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, he said:


And he took the time to downgrade his hopes for APEC:


You’ll note that the Prime Minister said “A successful Conference of the Parties”.

In Bali this year, as in Montreal in 2005 and Nairobi in 2006, there will actually be two parallel meetings. When Kyoto came into force, the countries that had ratified split away from the Conference of the Parties (COP) to form a Meeting of the Parties (to the Kyoto protocol) (MOP).

The MOP is where the action is, and Australia’s vote is only valid in what now constitutes the COP.

The Prime Minister is stranded on climate change, steadfastly opposed to the Kyoto protocol, dismissive of the UN process in which it is embedded and yet he has belatedly realised it’s the only game in town.

So where does this leave APEC?

Labor believes APEC can play a significant role in shaping global consensus ahead of the crucial UN climate change conference in Bali this December, particularly in building on the recent G8 Conference in Germany.

The G8, as you know, committed to achieving the goal of a 50% cut in global emissions by 2050 and critically acknowledged “the UN climate process is the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change.”

The Prime Minister must put aside his ideological aversion to multilateralism and recognise that there is no place for establishing competing regimes on climate change.

Mr Howard will doubtless try and spin it to the Australian public that whatever outcome is achieved it is what he has been arguing for.

In the lead up to the G8 Summits in Germany and the UK, Chancellor Merkel and Tony Blair clearly outlined what they expected the summits to achieve in relation to climate change.

Mr Howard hasn’t done that yet in relation to the APEC meeting.

Earlier this week I recommended a set of objectives for the upcoming APEC meeting to improve the prospects for real progress in Bali in December. That APEC members agree:

1. To participate fully in negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.


2. That any global agreement includes targets for global cuts in emissions that avoid dangerous climate change.



3. To include clear and effective processes for technology transfers within the UN framework.

4. To work towards including avoided deforestation in the Kyoto Protocol as a key opportunity to reduce global emissions.

5. That any bilateral or multilateral cooperation on emissions trading be consistent with established global rules.

US Chamber of Commerce

On ABC radio yesterday, Myron Brilliant, US Chamber of Commerce Vice President for Asia, emphasised the opportunities for business in addressing climate change – a position at odds with the Howard Government’s continued scaremongering:


The US Chamber of Commerce has also raised the bar for “steps forward” on climate change at APEC, recommending the Australian Government invite a UN envoy to observe proceedings.

MRET

Just five months ago, the Environment Minister said “the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target has been particularly successful”.  Now it seems to be completely removed from the Howard Government’s Climate Change Policy.  

We’ll have more to say on this later this week, but it represents another of the serious shortcomings of this government’s approach on climate change after eleven years of inaction which can rightly be described as being asleep at the wheel.  

Conclusion

Thanks to modern communications and, in no small part, foreign correspondents, community understanding about global affairs is increasing.

And while some Government’s don’t want to talk, and choose instead to look inwards, there is an alternate Government in Australia keen not only to discuss this issue and also to put forward constructive polices on how it can be best managed and addressed.

In the international arena:

• The first thing a Rudd Labor Government will do is to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
• We will also appoint a permanent ambassador for climate change, to push the development of UNFCCC negotitations and global missions trading. 
• And having committed to the Millenium Development Goal of 0.5% of Gross National Income in development aid by 2015, we will be a good neighbour in our region which is at the frontline of climate change.
  

Let me finish by recognising the importance of the global free press, and inviting you to put further questions to me.

I hope I have given you some insight into Labor’s alternative vision for Australia. The message I want you to take away is this:

• There are forces for common sense and progress on climate change in Australia;

• We are committed to playing a constructive role in the international community on this issue;

And I hope you can share these positive messages with your home audiences.

Thank you.