Rudd To Bush : It's Time For US To Ratify Kyoto

Bush Official Tells Rudd Government : Not A Chance

On the eve of major climate change talks in Bali, during which he hopes to "unite" the world in fighting global warming, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called on the US to join the world's major industrial powers and ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Within hours of becoming prime minister last Monday, Kevin Rudd undid a decade of obfuscation and global warming denialism on the part of the Howard government and signed Australian up to full Kyoto ratification. Less than 48 hours later, Rudd has called on the US to do likewise :

"Our position vis-a-vis Kyoto is clear cut, and that is that all developed and developing countries need to be part of the global solution," Mr Rudd said.

"When it comes to developed countries, we need to see our friends in America as part and parcel of that as well. "And therefore we do need to see the United States as a full ratification state when it comes to Kyoto."

But earlier today, during the first official meetings between the Bush administration and the new Australian government, Kevin Rudd was told by US Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns that the US would not ratify Kyoto and was instead looking to a post-2010 deal on carbon targets that would include China and India.

MORE TO COME

I Can Unite The World On Climate, Says Rudd

Liberals Go For Brendan "We Went To Iraq For The Oil" Nelson

Nelson's First Betrayal Of The Wing Nuts : "We Love Kyoto, Too!"

Uh oh. Paul Kelly will not be happy, but the wing nuts will be. The Liberals have voted in former Labor Party member and one time union leader, Brendan Nelson, as their new messiah, with Julie Bishop as deputy.

Nelson has managed to fight off the Malcolm Turnbull Leadership Coup, but only just, winning his spot at "the worst job in Australian politics" by only a handful of votes.

This means the Liberal Party will rumble with chaos and "Did Turnbull do it?" leaks undermining the new leader for months, or even years, to come.

Brendan "We Went To Iraq For The Oil" Nelson can be counted on to make life a little bit difficult for the Rudd government, but will remain a figure of public mockery, and will continue to provide plenty of gaffes and jaw droppers to keep the Liberal Party In Chaos entertainment coming.

So much for the Liberals taking a message from the election and creating a new, more appealing front line team and set of themes. They will isolate themselves even further from the Australian mainstream, with Nelson now free to air his wacko views on education, religion and the 'War on Terror' whenever he likes.

It's now time for all of those who confidently predicted Turnbull would win the leadership to quickly distance themselves from their previous comments.

UPDATE : Maybe the wing nuts won't be so happy with Nelson, after all.

Brendan Nelson is podiuming and announcing...Kyoto Is Good!

"I have heard the message from Australians that was delivered on Saturday and whatever some critics of the Kyoto Protocol might actually think, it's symbolically important to Australians," he said.

Now symbolism is important to the Liberals?

Here's Brendan Nelson hating Kyoto in 2005, and cheerleading nuclear energy :

"Australia has rightly refused to sign the Kyoto protocol."

"...is it not time to consider in the longer term the most obvious power source, nuclear power? It is not only in electricity production that nuclear energy offers potential for Australia. It could also be used to fuel water desalination on a large scale."

The Labor Party will have lots of fun with those quotes.

Let's see how Nelson's We Love Kyoto, Too declaration today compares to those that The Australian's Paul Kelly instructed the next Liberal leader to utter :

"The Liberal Party believes in Kyoto ratification and a post-2012 system that binds developing nations into the compact."

Kind of close.

It looks like Nelson will be uttering plenty of "Me Toos!" in the coming months, on WorkChoices (goodbye), on withdrawing combat forces from Iraq (good luck) and on embracing the fight against climate change (our members own waterfront properties).

The more the wing nuts rip into Nelson for not being as demented, bigoted and extreme as they are, the more isolated they will become in Australian politics, and Australian society.

AUSTRALIA LEFT BEGGING TO BE AT THE BIG TABLE ON FIGHT TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING

THE RUSH TO GET IN ON THE ACTION OF THE FUTURE WORLD CURRENCY - CARBON TRADING CREDITS

The Australian treasurer, Peter Costello, has sheepishly, but finally, admitted that Australian will join the Kyoto Protocol.

They won't sign up, of course, but they will take part, they will ensure carbon emissions meet Kyoto targets and they will officially acknowledge that carbon emissions are adding to the effects of the climate change inducing reality of global warming.

Only hours before the announcement by the treasurer on ABC's Lateline, Australian prime minister, John Howard was still pretending that he was one tough negotiator when it came to this global warming business, and it was in fact he that was insisting that rapidly growing, mass-industrialised nations like India and China do something about their emissions for the sake of future generations.

It was all pure Howard theatre. China was one of the first countries in the world to join a then experimental carbon credit trading system, more than four years, when Howard was still smirking and snorting about environmentalists and the dreaded Greeeennnsss, mocking them all for having panic fits about something called global warming.

After years of insulting the Europeans over their insistence that the Kyoto Protocol must be taken seriously, and that countries like Australia need to get on board, the harsh reality has well and truly dawned on the money men of the Australian government that they are about to miss out, bigstyle, on becoming part of the new unofficial world currency known as 'carbon trading credits'.

It doesn't even matter anymore whether John Howard believes global warming is a reality, or if he acknowledges that rapid industrialisation using coal as a key energy source (Australia's leading export industry) is adding to the problems. Most of the rest of the world has well and truly left skeptics like Howard far, far behind.

Which is why Howard, five to eight years late, is rushing to catch up.


Australian environmentalists, and climate scientists, are still shaking their heads in disbelief that John Howard has so quickly taken up the mantra of "Something must be done about global warming".

All this comes, of course, after the Howard government spent years trying to block the truth from emerging out of Australia's leading scientific body, the CSIRO, about climate change and the dire long-term environmental, and economic, effects of global warming.

Howard has an agenda, and that agenda is using the reality of global warming to push for the rapid and massive expansion of nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

Australia is already one of the world's leaders when it comes to mining uranium. Howard wants Australia to become the world leader for uranium exports. a market worth, literally, hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.


Austraila's reputation as an international pariah, thanks to a decade of near inactivity on the key issues of climate change, will take many years, and probably a change of government, to shake off.

Short of two or three Australians cities getting bombed, global warming will be a far more important issue at the 2007 federal elections than international terrorism, or the 'War On Iraq'. Howard knows this, of course. He will flog global warming to death, regardless of whether or not he believes it is an economy shredding reality. Most Australians believe, so Howard does too. Now.

Go To Your New Reality For The Full Story


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