BY JIM GREEN
The Australian delegation to the crucial climate change conference at the Hague has been awarded a "Fossil of the Day" award because of its persistent efforts to widen loopholes in the Kyoto protocol.
On November 15, more than 100 non-government groups at the conference awarded Australia, along with US, New Zealand and Canada the award following their push to remove the need for "carbon sinks" to comply with international environmental conventions.
Carbon sinks are tree-planting projects big polluting countries like Australia want to use to absorb carbon dioxide as a partial or complete alternative to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Howard government is arguing that carbon sink projects and other "flexibility mechanisms" should not have to conform to international agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention to Combat Desertification.
Anna Reynolds, coordinator of Climate Action Network Australia, a coalition of 30 environment groups, said, "We don't want to see the government exploit the public's concern about climate change as an excuse to fill up the countryside with plantations full of exotic trees that may be of little environmental value as habitat and of high intensity in water and fertiliser use."
The implications of the Australian negotiating position are already evident: native forest in Tasmania is being cleared to make way for plantations in order to generate carbon credits under a joint venture between the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Mitsubishi and North Forest Products.
Another loophole being exploited by the Australian delegation at the Hague allows land use changes to be credited against emissions. This loophole is known as the "Australia clause", having been won by the Australian delegation at 4am on the final day of negotiations at the 1997 Kyoto conference. The government believed that the massive land clearing in 1990 would inflate Australia's baseline emissions, thus making it easier to meet the generous target secured by Australia at Kyoto of an 8% increase in emissions from 1990 to 2008-2012.
Professor Ian Lowe from Griffith University questioned the scientific basis of land-use credits in the November 15 Sydney Morning Herald: "Clearing land doesn't always release carbon; Queensland studies show that regrowth is often thicker than the original bush and so stores more carbon. Assessing the whole system requires counting carbon stored in soil as well as vegetation, so planting trees may not store extra carbon."
The federal government has acquiesced to all of the demands of the worst greenhouse-emitting industries. As a Sydney Morning Herald report noted on November 14 , "... business can be confident of at least one thing: that the Australian Government is on its side at The Hague — not that of the conservationists."
Industry demands which have now attained the status of government policy include: Australia will not ratify the Kyoto protocol unless the US does, nor will it ratify the protocol until it includes underdeveloped nations; Australia is pushing for unlimited use of carbon sinks and other flexibility mechanisms to off-set emissions; and an emissions trading scheme will not be established in Australia until an international one is brought into being.
The "need" to include underdeveloped nations is being justified with the precious argument that they would otherwise obtain an "unfair" economic advantage. However, Third World countries are responsible for only about 15-20% of greenhouse emissions, and they are at greatest risk of suffering the adverse effects of climate change.
Anna Reynolds from Climate Action Network Australia said in a November 13 media release, "It's a bit like diners at a five star restaurant refusing to pay the bill unless they close down a soup kitchen out the back. It's ridiculous for big, polluting, wealthy nations to say we won't do anything until other countries take action when our emissions continue to go through the roof."
The federal government's one legislative measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — that an extra 2% of energy must come from renewable sources by 2010 — has been blocked in the Senate because of the government's insistence on defining the burning of old-growth forest woodchips as a "renewable" energy source.
Substantial progress has been made at the Hague conference on the issue of binding consequences for countries failing to meet their greenhouse targets. However, Australia, along with Japan and Russia, still opposes binding consequences, preferring instead "facilitative consequences".
The Australian delegation has confirmed that Australia will not vote against proposals to subsidise nuclear power plants in underdeveloped nations as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects which could be credited against greenhouse gas emissions. Ironically, the US has backed away from its previous support for the inclusion of nuclear power in CDM projects.
David Sandalow, head of the US delegation to the Hague conference, said the United States is "open to discussing" the issue because of concerns over safety, waste disposal, weapons proliferation, costs and public acceptance. The US appears to be more interested in securing unlimited use of sinks, emissions trading and other loopholes.
The Hague conference frequently degenerates into farce. The Australian delegation — for the second year running — has objected to the term "best practice" in relation to greenhouse gas reduction measures, preferring "good practice" instead.
Draft agreements frequently contain bracketed text, reflecting disagreements between parties, with some drafts so heavily bracketed that observers are questioning whether brackets within brackets cancel each other out. In addition to formal conference sessions, there are informal sessions and also "informal, informal sessions". In addition to conference papers, any number of so-called "non-papers" are circulating at the Hague.