30 October 2007

Peter Garrett MP
Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Heritage and Arts

The Howard Government’s position on climate change – moves around faster than a weather vane.

And when they talk about climate change, the Liberals only want to talk about 2012 – five years from now; not what they can do now – like ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

This morning, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said there had to be two sets of rules on climate change – more “stringent” ones for Australia and “negotiate arrangements” for developing countries.

But a month ago, the Prime Minister argued at APEC that there had to be one set of rules on climate change for all nations.

Then yesterday, Mr Howard said:

“We’ll only be part of a new international agreement if it covers all of the major emitters. It’s useless to have international agreement that does not cover the major emitters. I mean, what is the point of having a situation where perhaps by the year 2030, two thirds of the emissions are coming from countries that are not part of the international agreement?" (HOWARD ABC AM 29 OCTOBER)

This morning (30 Oct – 7.55am), Mr Downer made the contradiction on ABC’s Radio National Breakfast Program with Fran Kelly. The exchange is as follows:

FRAN KELLY: So Minister if I’ve got this right, you’re suggesting there needs to be different rules for different countries but I thought just previously you’d said that we can’t operate in a system where we have more stringent requirements of us than other countries do.

DOWNER: Well…

KELLY: So which is right?

DOWNER: Exactly, exactly. There will be differentiated, there will, there will no doubt be differentiated…

KELLY: Some will be less stringent, some will be more stringent?

DOWNER: There will be differentiated approaches. It depends what you mean by stringent of course because they are developing countries. They will obviously try to negotiate arrangements that help them achieve the balance between stabilising and reducing emissions and maintaining economic growth. There’s no doubt about that.

Only on 9 September 9 2007, Prime Minister John Howard argued against any climate change agreement that had different rules for Australia and developing countries: He said:

We did not sign Kyoto, for the very good reason that it was not in our interests to do so…Now we had good reasons not to ratify the protocol because that would have imposed obligations on Australia that were not imposed on competitor countries and that could have damaged our industry and our competitive position, and that is the reason why we did not sign up.
(John Howard APEC Australia 2007 Final Press Conference -9 September 2007)

Details: Ryan Heath 0449 141 398