Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

In September 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which involves 2,500 climate scientists, issued a landmark statement representing a level of consensus that had not previously been achieved on the issue of global warming. The Panel stated in their 1995 report that "the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate" and that climatic instability was likely to cause "widespread economic, social and environmental dislocation over the next century."

Public Concern

In Australia a Herald/AC Nielsen-McNair survey conducted in November 1997 found that 90 percent of Australians are concerned about global warming, 83 percent believe it is a serious threat to humans and the environment, 79 percent said that Australia should sign a treaty to cut emissions and 68 percent said that economic concerns should not prevent the Government from signing such a treaty. In the US a New York Times November poll also found that the majority of people (65 percent) felt that the US should cut greenhouse gas emissions even if other countries don't.

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Kyoto Protocol

In December 1997 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in Kyoto, Japan to discuss a treaty to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Over 10,000 people attended including 1,500 delegates from 160 countries, 3500 observers, and 4000 media people. The outcomes of the conference were disappointing but not surprising given the strength of industry opposition to an effective treaty. Although the European Union had been pushing for average reductions of 15% below 1990 levels, the average turned out to be little more than 5% and three countries were in fact granted approval to increase their emissions (see table below ).

Australia	+8%	Iceland	+10%	Poland	-6%
Bulgaria	-8%	Japan	-6%	Romania	-8%
Canada	-6%	Latvia	-8%	Russia	0%
Croatia	-5%	Liechtenstein	-8%	Slovakia	-8%
Czech Rep.	-8%	Lithuania	-8%	Slovenia	-8%
Estonia	-8%	Monaco	-8%	Switzerland	-8%
EIJ	-8%	New Zealand	0%	Ukraine	0%
Hungary	-6%	Norway	+1%	United States	-7%

For the treaty to be legally binding it has to be ratified by a minimum of 55 nations responsible for atleast 55% of emissions. A country which does not ratify the treaty, that is, get its government to formally agree to it, is not bound by it.

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Agreed Mechanisms

The agreement provides enough loopholes and flexibility to ensure that countries like the US that have committed to reductions do not have to actually reduce their emissions. It may even enable "large covert increases in domestic emissions." Tradeable emissions let countries buy the rights to discharge emissions above their agreed target from countries that reduce their emissions beyond their agree targets. For example some countries in Eastern Europe are already emitting 30% less carbon dioxide than in 1990 because of economic decline and they may be happy to sell their rights to emissions in return for hard currency, with no net benefit to the planet.

Another mechanism, Joint Implementation, enables countries like the US to offset their own emissions by providing energy efficient technologies to developing countries or by 'creating' environmental 'sinks' to absorb carbon dioxide, such as forests. For example, American Electric Power, which uses coal to generate electricity, has already pledged to preserve 2.7 million acres of a tropical rainforest in Bolivia in the hope that this will exempt it from having to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions which would be far more expensive.

In Australia the government is hoping to avoid measures to curtail industry and energy-based emissions of carbon dioxide by decreasing the rate of land clearance. It won this concession along with an increase of 8% on 1990 levels of emissions through sheer obstinacy at the Kyoto conference.

The Clinton administration signed the Kyoto Treaty at the Buenos Aires meeting in November 1998, despite heavy opposition from Senate which will have to approve it before it becomes legally binding in the US. The meeting itself achieved little apart from the adoption of a year 2000 deadline for working out mechanisms for meeting the Kyoto Treaty targets.

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Additional Material

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1997, Australia and Climate Change Negotiations, Issues Paper, September.

Climate Convention, Beginners Guide, UNEP.

Other papers and speeches from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Gallup, Alec and Lydia Saad, 1997, 'Public Concerned, Not Alarmed About Global Warming', The Gallup Poll Home Page.

Hogarth, Murray, 1997, 'PM out of step on greenhouse', Sydney Morning Herald, 26 November, p. 1.

Sutherland, Donald, 1998, Sabotaging Kyoto by Privatizing Compliance, Earth Island Journal, Spring.

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