Climate Red - News and Views on Climate Change Issues.

Font Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large | December 19, 2007
THE attempted European hijack at Bali with its false expectations conceals the progress made in creating the road map for a two-year UN path that can lead to a new global pact in 2010.

The point to grasp about Bali is that it has kept everybody in the tent, developed and developing nations, including the US. Given the history, this is an achievement. Indeed, the whole aim of any post-2012 system must be to remedy the defects of the Kyoto Protocol where more of the same spells failure.


The US has not ratified Kyoto. Developing nations have no serious obligations under Kyoto. Global greenhouse emissions continue to rise strongly under Kyoto. The point is obvious: the system needs new architecture and new principles. This is the meaning of Bali: it does not guarantee a global compact at Copenhagen in two years' time, but it does offer a path forward.

Bali is important for two reasons: the US moved a long distance and the developing world (with China soon to become the chief emitter) accepted the idea of new obligations.

From Australia's perspective the Bali meeting was a conspicuous success. New PM Kevin Rudd has repositioned Australia by signalling Kyoto Protocol ratification. Rudd and his Climate Change Minister Penny Wong made an excellent start in having Australia operate as a diplomatic bridge builder between developed and developing nations.

And Rudd sent the message that he would not be intimidated by European-led crusades that are more about politics than solving climate change.

Wong seized the chance she was given courtesy of our Kyoto ratification. She was asked to chair the pivotal working group that devised the final text, a task she accepted on the proviso that there was a co-chair from the developing world (Argentina). Most of the news from Bali, day after day, was about the European hijack: the attempt to intimidate mainly the US but also Japan, Russia, Canada and Australia into signing up to emissions cuts for developed nations of between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020. The rationale reflected the so-called science about halting temperature increases. The green NGOs ran the campaign with alacrity backed by true believer media.

The Americans stared down the Europeans. The Russians were impervious to European tactics. And Rudd declined to become a mug at his first outing.

The task at Bali was to get the US and China into the tent. As former head of Australia's foreign affairs department, Michael Costello, argued on this page last week, you don't achieve this by volunteering at the outset of a brutal two-year negotiation that industrial nations will make far deeper cuts but let China, India and Indonesia off the hook.

Rudd, like John Howard, knows a post-2012 system must impose obligations upon both developed and developing nations. But Rudd's embrace of the science and the symbolism suggest a bridge-building diplomacy more effective than Howard's.

Some NGOs attacked Australia for refusing to lead when, in really, Australia was leading, but not the way they wanted.

In his speech at Bali, Rudd said the planet's future meant the old north-south development schism - what he called "the old ideological, political and development divide" - must be transcended.

He said that post-2012 all developed nations, including the US, must accept deeper binding emission cuts and the developing nations must match this with new pledges.

This constitutes an amended architecture to solve climate change. It recognises the architecture of UN Framework Convention is flawed because of the leverage it gives developing nations (along with an excuse for their inaction) and for its failure to predict how quickly nations such as China and India would become the main emitters.

One of the stunning lines from Bali was UN climate chief, Yvo de Boer hailing the deal as the end of the "Berlin Wall of climate change".

What, pray, is this Berlin Wall? It is the entrenched north-south divide written into the UN convention, as a moral issue and which has crippled real progress. Pulling down much of this Berlin Wall and redefining climate change relations between north and south is now on the agenda.

In the end the US saw the need for a new agreement involving "measurable, reportable and verifiable" national commitments by all developed nations. The two-year timetable extends to the next US president, probably a Democrat. This is a good thing. While a Democrat administration will be closer to Europe, the gulf will remain significant and it will highlight the impossibility of the US Congress endorsing any global deal without obligations on developing nations such as China and India.

The Bali compact backed climate change action by developing nations that was "measurable, reportable and verifiable". This opens the door to new principles, though they are yet to be devised.

The contours of Australian policy have been set by Rudd and Wong: we will seek to bridge the divide between north and south and between the US and Europe. This is a classic Australian position. It means intense bilateral Australian action with China, India and Indonesia to find shared ground.

This contrasts with Europe's tactics at Bali: playing to domestic political opinion, exploiting Bush's unpopularity and trying to embarrass the US. Wong, by contrast, was careful to distance Australia from the European-NGO attacks on the US knowing that Australia needs close working relations with the US to realise its mission.

Bali was Rudd's first effort in trying to hold the middle ground of public opinion on climate change. He declined to accept the 25-40 per cent emission reduction goal not because he disputes the science but because, in political terms (not legal terms), it would have pre-empted the review he commissioned from Ross Garnaut.

Rudd sees Garnaut's report as bringing together the science and economics leading to independent Australian decisions on our 2020 target. There are many factors to consider and Garnaut has flagged some in a recent speech. Consider population growth.

If Australia's population grows at 40 per cent over 2000-20 while Germany's shrinks, then such results must greatly affect emission targets. In this situation a 25 per cent reduction target for Australia would be harder to achieve than a 40 per cent target for Germany.

The moral is to beware of believers who demand that Rudd takes hasty and irresponsible decisions in the cause of saving the world. Rudd has delivered his answer.