By Francesca Davis
On September 26, it became public knowledge that the Howard government had secretly decided not to ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty.
According to the Canberra Times, resources and energy minister Senator Warwick Parer, at a meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Minerals and Energy Council (ANZMEC) in August, told mining and petroleum industry lobbyists that Australia would not ratify the Kyoto treaty unless the US did.
Minutes of the ANZMEC meeting indicate that the industry representatives were delighted.
The Republican-dominated US Congress has repeatedly said it will not ratify the agreement unless developing nations accept cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions.
Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown has called for Parer's resignation for misleading the world on Australia's greenhouse gas reduction commitments. Australia went to the Kyoto conference in December with a position based on widely criticised, and industry-funded, climate models.
Australia was the only country to come away from the Kyoto meeting with the right to increase emissions — by 8%.
Although Canberra signed the treaty, it will not be binding on Australia until it is ratified. Recent surveys show that 76% of the Australian population want Australia to cut greenhouse gas pollution.
Greens Senator Dee Margetts, who attended the Kyoto conference, commented: "Our negotiators, led by Robert Hill, the minister posing as an environment minister, dragged down the targets for everyone else in order to get special treatment, and now they are showing contempt for the very process they tried so hard to derail".
No other countries have yet ratified the treaty. According to Anna Reynolds from the ACF, the Kyoto agreement is "fairly woolly. We're not talking about a move to some sort of strict government regime; there's certainly nothing to be fearful about."
A reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 60% is required to stabilise global warming. At Kyoto, the total average reduction agreed to was only 5.2%.
Nevertheless, international mining and petrochemical industries have fought hard against the treaty. The American Petroleum Institute (API) in May circulated a proposal for a $5 million plan to fund scientists to undermine the case for action on greenhouse gas pollution.
This follows extensive campaigning in the lead-up to Kyoto by an international alliance of mining and petroleum conglomerates. Now the API is backing an amendment to a bill in the US Senate that would ban the US administration from spending any money on "rules, regulations, or programs designed to implement, or in contemplation of implementing" the Kyoto agreement.
The amendment would prevent the Environmental Protection Authority from advocating action to halt climate change or from holding seminars on global warming. The EPA's global warming web site may become illegal.
According to the July 25 New Scientist, the Republican majority in Congress is also preparing to veto the first phase of a $6 billion initiative to promote research and investment in energy-efficient cars and buildings, and in renewable energy.
While the US administration accepted a cut of 7% at Kyoto, this has to be ratified by Congress. The US Senate has already voted 95-0 to refuse to do so unless developing nations also make cuts.
Such moves are alarming in the light of new information on global warming. In a Greenpeace report released in June, scientists pointed to parts of the world where the rate of warming resulting from human activities was three to five times the global average. Fires, floods, storms and temperature levels have hit an all-time high.
A study by Michael E. Mann concludes that this century has been the warmest in 600 years. The hottest years have been 1990, 1995 and 1997. The greatest total rise in sea temperature ever recorded was in 1997-1998 — caused by the strongest El Niño ever known.
Kevin Trenberth and Timothy Hoar, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, have concluded that the recent odd sequence of El Niños should have a natural probability of occurring only once in 2000 years.
While the global temperature has increased by 1° Fahrenheit (0.6° C) in a century, the temperature in Alaska, northern Siberia and Canada has increased by around 5°F (3° C) in 30 years.
Meanwhile, scientists are recording the strongest beginning to the ozone hole over the Antarctic in eight years — the hole has stretched to over three times the size of Australia.
There is more evidence of the direct correlation between global warming and disease. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1995 pointed to the deaths of 1300 people in India and 100 in Texas due to heat waves. Heat waves are expected to become more frequent and intense, and occur over and above already increased general temperatures.
Heavy rainfall and flooding have caused a rise in cholera, hepatitis, E. coli infections, cryptosporidium and mosquito-borne diseases. Tens of thousands of people in Kenya and Somalia were infected with Rift Valley fever in the past year, after the heaviest rains since 1961.
While extremes are expected due to global warming, scientists are still being taken by surprise. For example, projections by the IPCC in 1995 were based on computer models that assumed forests will soak up more carbon than they release. However, one of the consequences of warming is that the extreme El Niño the earth is experiencing is causing a drying-out of forests.
Last year, vast fires swept through forests in Florida, Mexico, Indonesia and the Amazon. The Indonesian fires alone released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than a whole year's worth of fossil fuel burning in the European Union. One of the more frightening scenarios is global warming being compounded by the release of greenhouse gases stored in forests and soils.
The flip-side of this is that the ability of forests to absorb water is reduced after fire, contributing to flooding.
Fearing the impact of global warming-induced natural disasters, big insurance companies are campaigning for quicker action to reduce global warming. In 1996, insurance companies throughout the world paid out US$12.4 billion due to natural disasters.
A meeting in Bonn in June flagged different ideas about how the targets of Kyoto treaty should be reached. Decisions will be made at a meeting in November in Buenos Aires.
Most popular amongst the industrialised countries is "emission trading" — in which countries can buy or sell their emission rights. Developing nations argue that such a system would reward large industrialised polluters without compensating poorer nations, which are suffering the worst effects of climate change.
The US, which causes 22% of global warming pollution, is pushing a wide-open trading system in which the US could meet its emission reduction obligations by purchasing pollution "credits" from countries that have achieved emission levels below their targets. Many such credits are meaningless paper reductions that have already occurred due to the collapse of Russia's and eastern Europe's heavy industries.
Acceptance of the scheme would mean the US would not have to cut its greenhouse gas pollution at all.
Despite US intransigence, the EU has proposed a limit to the amount of emission reductions that can be achieved through such mechanisms. EU president Michael Meacher warns that "domestic action must the main means of achieving the emissions reductions" or else trading in "hot air" will make a mockery of the Kyoto treaty.
The EU has expressed disappointment at the Australian government's decision. While a $180 million greenhouse plan has been launched, Australia has no federal greenhouse standards and no state cooperation on greenhouse gas reduction.
According to Senator Margetts, parliament's joint treaties committee has not been asked to consider the Kyoto treaty. The government included cuts to the cost of diesel fuel in its tax package and has plans for highly polluting oil shale mines in Queensland.
With its decision not to ratify the Kyoto treaty, the Coalition has made it clear it intends to continue to govern for business at the expense of the planet and its people.