Two years ago Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer explained why his country would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Australia was being asked to screw down its greenhouse gas emissions, he said, while its immediate industrial competitors, such as Indonesia, were not.
(Under the protocol, developing countries such as
Indonesia do not have to cut their emissions.)
If Australia jacked up taxes on the electricity used by its aluminium plants, say, to cut back on CO2, but Indonesia didn't, the Australian plants would simply become uncompetitive and go bust, and the business would move to Indonesia, where environmental regulation was laxer - and just as much carbon was being emitted.
Who was that helping? I thought it was a solid argument, given Australia's circumstances. But the flaw was the implication that these circumstances gave Downer's country a get-out - and with global warming there are none.
It is a worldwide phenomenon, and even if you don't feel you need to act to prevent it, you will be affected. The irony of Australia, the Kyoto refusenik, being one of the first nations to be clobbered by climate change will be lost on no one.
The lesson is that collective action on the climate, from the developing and the industrialised countries together, is the great imperative for the world.
The desperate need now is to construct a post-Kyoto deal (the treaty runs out in 2012) that will involve everyone: Europe, China, and most important the US - which has been out of the Kyoto process, at George W. Bush's behest, since 2001.
The first serious attempt to do this will be made in Heiligendamm, where the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, will host the G8 summit for 2007 beginning on June 6.
A diplomatic effort is being made to try to build these foundations; no one underestimates the difficulty, not least of bringing the US back on board.
You can bet drought-struck Australia will be cheering it on.
- INDEPENDENT
