#LibNatClimateApology
What I really think is that all Federal Liberal and National Ministers since 1995 should publicly apologise to the people of Australia for seeking to delay, undermine and prevent effective action on Climate Change.
Why 1995 ? The first UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (i.e COP 1 ) took place from 28 March to 7 April 1995 in Berlin, Germany. That was the meeting that led to the Kyoto Protocols of 1997. As we know,the LNP attempted to prevent effective action on Climate Change throughout the COP 1 – Kyoto process and has continued to work against effective Climate action ever since.
As I wrote in Relaxed, Comfortable and Neutralised
the Howard government attempted to sabotage the Framework Convention On Climate Change (which became the Kyoto Protocol), reasoning it would damage our economy too much to try and meet any respectable challenging lower target for Carbon emissions.
It did this by introducing the idea of different targets for each country in the Geneva Conference of the Parties(1996) with Australia to be granted special privileges to raise Greenhouse emissions. The special provisions demanded by Australia were so high and so unreasonable it almost caused the 1997 Kyoto Conference to collapse, delegates working to 3 a.m. on the day of the final session to accommodate the intransigent Australian delegation. This achieved, Senator Robert Hill then demanded at 4 a.m further huge increases in allowable emissions to accommodate changes in land use.
Australia’s Performance At Kyoto
The basic outcome at Kyoto was that Australia was allowed to increase emissions by 8 per cent on the 1990 base year level. European nations agreed to reduce by a total of 8 per cent, the United States by 7 per cent and Japan by 6 per cent. We got a sweetheart deal.
ABC environment reporter Alan Tate was in Kyoto during the 1997 discussions which led to the Kyoto Protocol. He filed daily reports during the 12 days of the conference whoch are recorded on his web page Kyoto Diary
The reason Australia achieved that deal was that the world community was anxious to begin the process of Climate Mitigation with an agreement that encompassed all First World (roughly meaning G20) nations. The COP parties reasoned that it was better to accomodate a recalcitrant Australia than not have us in at all. Symbolically, the world would embark on Climate Change Mitigation “together”
To this end the Parties allowed Australia two enormous concessions. The first was to allow ‘Differentiated Targets’ in which different first-world regions to commit to different targets. As you can see. the COP Parties envisioned all parties commiting to a roughly 8% reduction in CO2 emissions. And this the world basically did, except notably Australia which was permitted an 8% increase. Norway and Iceland were also permitted increases of 5% and 10% respectively
If this was not enough, Australia was also demanding to allow changes in Land-Use to be counted towards mitigation totals. i.e. by agreeing to reduce the rate of Land Clearing so as to conserve Carbon ‘sinks’ and also to conserve the actual emissions expended by Land Clearing operations. As Alan Tate writes, the great majority of the Parties were opposed to this but Australia did have support from New Zealand and The United States.
most environment groups and many scientists [opposed Land Use Changes to be counted toward mitigation targets] chiefly because the ability to measure how much the sinks actually absorb carbon dioxide is very dodgy. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change has said the area for error in sink measurement is plus or minus sixty per cent
Holding Kyoto Together
The Kyoto Parties had not achieved a full agreement by the end of Day 10, the scheduled last day of the conference. The negotiations had many difficult and complex areas to resolve. Australia exploited this fragility by insisting on demands which exempted it from meaningful Climate Action. John Howard was happy for Kyoto to collapse and had floated a ridiculous proposal of an 18% increase in emissions as Australia’s rightful target.
As Day 10 closed without agreement the redoubtable conference chairman Raul Estrada refused to dissolve the proceedings and allow the historic opportunity for the commencement of world-wide Climate Mitigation to fail. Some delegates left anyway to catch airline flights
So it was in this fraught and fragile environment in the early hours of the morning of DAY 11, at 3am and 4am the conference voted to accept Australia’s demands to be allowed a large increase in emissions and that emissions from land clearance could be included in its greenhouse gas emission measurements and that carbon sinks be counted in mitigation targets. Australia now had an easy way of cutting its total emissions by reducing land clearing and meeting any target which came from a Kyoto agreement. In fact, it gave us precisely nothing to do.
Immoral, Wrong and A Disgrace
As Lenore Taylor of The Guardian writes–when it was done, the European environment spokesman raged that the deal was “wrong and immoral … and a disgrace” and the then executive director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton, quickly calculated that Australia’s emissions were likely to come in under the new target without the need to do anything.
Australia’s Clause
so particular to our circumstances were the land-use changes it was called “the Australia Clause”. It allowed the inclusion of land-use changes in emission calculations in a way that meant restrictions that had already been imposed on large-scale land clearing – especially in Queensland – allowed Australia to rest assured it had achieved its new target before it even signed up to it.
Taylor, reporting on that meeting for the Australian Financial Review, recalls Australia’s Delegate Senator Robert Hill
demanding the Australia Clause changes when the translators had already left the building and the cleaners had started rearranging the room for the next scheduled conference.
Deceitful DNA
That was how the LibNats embarked on Australia’s International Climate Mitigation: by attempting to collapse the Kyoto Conference and demanding immoral and disgraceful deals that required zero effective action.
And that’s what’s in the LibNat DNA on Climate, And how they have conducted themselves on Climate to the present day. Which is why Australia, burning in unprecedented bushfires across four states in unprecedented temperatures requires of the LibNats a #LibNatClimateApology
#LibNatClimateApology
From Wikipedia:
The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC Parties (Conference of the Parties, COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.