Almost immediately after being sworn in as Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has signed the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, it’s only a first step, but one that seemed well beyond us only a couple of years ago.
The formal ratification process will take 90 days, but the effect is that Australia can take part in the Bali conference as a full participant, leaving only one significant holdout – the Bush Administration in the United States.
A significant side benefit for Australia is that our attendance at Bali as a participant rather than a spoiler will help to cement the improvement in our often fraught relationship with Indonesia, evident since Rudd replaced Howard.
{ 9 comments }
Joshua Holmes 12.04.07 at 2:16 am
Under the US Constitution, a treaty is not law unless it is signed by the President and confirmed by two-thirds of the Senate. U.S. Const. Art. II, Sec. 2. Before President Clinton signed the Kyoto Treaty, the Senate passed a resolution refusing to endorse Kyoto. The vote was 95-0, 4 Democrats and 1 Republican abstained. Knowing it would be essentially meaningless, Clinton signed Kyoto anyway. Clinton didn’t even bother to submit it to the Senate for approval.
Kyoto is not American law, and therefore the President has no authority to act on it, either Clinton, Bush, or whoever comes along in 2008. Until the 2/3rds of the Senate ratifies Kyoto, the President has no power.
goatchowder 12.04.07 at 6:15 am
One of the things I envy about the Australian Parliamentary system is how quickly after an election the new government takes office and starts doing stuff.
Whereas, we have to wait from the election on November 4th until the end of January until finally being rid of Bush/Cheney and their cronies in the Senate and House.
I’d love to add the abandonment of this idiotic 18th-century anachronism to the list of minor tweaks that a second Constitutional Convention might make.
And yes, I think we’ll be close to a 2/3rds Senate majority in 2009 that’d feel enough pressure to ratify Kyoto.
John Quiggin 12.04.07 at 7:15 am
Among the routine anti-Kyoto talking points, reference to the 1997 vote has to be just about the silliest. This non-binding vote was taken over a decade ago, before Kyoto was even signed.
The Climate Stewardship Act got 43 votes much more recently against the strong opposition of the Administration. If Bush had wanted Kyoto ratification, he could have had it.
Tim Worstall 12.04.07 at 2:31 pm
Just for fun (no, this isn’t a serious argument*), didn’t I see recently that US emissions dropped in the last measured year? Meaning that the only people not to have signed Kyoto are the only people who did cut emissions in that year?
* Because one year doesn’t matter very much, that’s why it’s not a serious argumnt.
Slocum 12.04.07 at 8:03 pm
However…
“…Rudd has stuck to the insistence of former Prime Minister John Howard that Australia will not sign on to the post-2012 continuation of the agreement if the emerging global powers, and global-sized emitters, China and India, are not party to it.”
And
“But for all Howard’s bluster, and despite Rudd’s decision to sign up to Kyoto just a month before its first five-year term ends, Australia is almost on target to meet Kyoto emission standards anyway.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/04/asia/australia.php
In other words, signing up for Kyoto is going to cost Australia little or nothing in the short term, and in the long term, Rudd’s post-Kyoto position seems little different than Howard’s (or Bush’s for that matter).
John Quiggin 12.04.07 at 8:11 pm
Slocum, this is way off the mark, as the rest of the article you quoted suggests.
Labor will introduce emissions trading and both short-term and long-term binding targets. Until a year or two ago, Howard rejected all these things. Bush still does. Admittedly, Howard’s backdown in the last couple of years moved him much closer to the Labor position, and further away from Bush, but this would surely not have survived an against-the-odds election win.
Slocum 12.04.07 at 11:01 pm
Slocum, this is way off the mark, as the rest of the article you quoted suggests.
How, exactly, does it suggest that?
Labor will introduce emissions trading and both short-term and long-term binding targets.
Short term binding targets during the Kyoto time frame that achieve minimal reductions below existing levels is kind of a yawner. Yes Rudd will introduce emissions trading whereas Howard did not. And the difference this will make in actual emissions will be negligible.
And long term this remains the fundamental issue:
“Rudd has stuck to the insistence of former Prime Minister John Howard that Australia will not sign on to the post-2012 continuation of the agreement if the emerging global powers, and global-sized emitters, China and India, are not party to it.”
That is the critical sense in which Rudd’s position matches both Bush’s and — wait and see — that of an incoming U.S. Democratic president.
Shelby 12.05.07 at 5:02 am
John,
Any thoughts on Peter Garrett’s being gagged on climate-change matters? And what was the point of making him Environment Minister, then?
John Quiggin 12.05.07 at 7:29 am
Slocum, you’re completely wrong about targets, and your remarks on emissions trading suggest that you know almost nothing about climate change in general. Since you appear to have made your comments about Australian climate policy on the basis of a single article in a foreign paper, this is scarcely surprising. If you like I could point you to some of my journal and newspaper articles on the topic.
Shelby, Garrett has had some problems adapting to party politics (off-the-cuff policy announcements and jocular remarks to rightwing journalists) and the response has been to confine him to domestic environmental issues. Government is different from Opposition and he may do better there.
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