The Dreyfus Files - The Age
The agreement at the United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban to develop a legal climate change framework that will apply to all countries is an historic achievement. Australia can be proud to have taken part in it, yet the chorus of criticism from the opposition and the Greens has followed a predictably negative script.
For the first time, all of the world's major emitters, including the US and China, have committed to take on legal obligations to reduce carbon pollution.
The Durban outcome shows that the world continues to move forward with climate change action and it puts the lie to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's farcical claims that no other countries are doing anything.
Only days ago the Coalition's own climate spokesman and soothsayer Greg Hunt sought to completely discredit the Durban meeting, claiming on a Melbourne radio station that: ''There won't be a global agreement.''
Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham (from South Australia) has been reading from the same inaccurate script telling the same station: ''There doesn't appear to be any hope of a replacement to Kyoto, or an extension to Kyoto, being agreed upon and so that means we'll see this perverse situation where the world will enter a void where there is no agreement to act.''
Not only are the opposition getting it wrong yet again when it comes to action on climate change, they're displaying staggering hypocrisy. As Senator Birmingham well knows, the opposition shares Labor's policy commitment to reducing carbon pollution by 5 per cent on 2000 levels by 2020. The only difference is, the opposition's proposals don't involve taxing Australia's 500 biggest polluters, they involve taxing ordinary Australians – an approach that's been independently verified as wildly expensive and unable to meet the pollution reduction target.
And the fact is that Durban agreed on concrete measures that will step up action, starting right now and continuing to 2020. In addition to the launch of negotiations for a new international agreement, which will be concluded by 2015 and come into effect by 2020, the Durban conference decision will also build on the existing pledges made by 90 countries to reduce emissions.
And contrary to what Greg Hunt said on radio, the major economies are taking action now and into the future. Both developed and developing countries, including the US and China, put forward pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2020.
Those countries taking action domestically to reduce carbon pollution will find themselves in a significantly better position in the low carbon-economy of 2020 and beyond. Australia will have already taken up the opportunities that a carbon price brings to the low-carbon economy of the future.
Australia will have already invested in renewable energy and new technologies, processes and methodologies that will ensure Australia's economy is ready for a clean energy future. This is a good outcome for the environment and a good outcome for our future generations.
Recognising this, the reality is that both the Gillard government and the opposition share the policy commitment of reducing carbon emissions by 5 per cent on 2000 levels by 2020. The Gillard government has delivered the Clean Energy Future package to get us there, imposing a carbon price on the top 500 polluters, while the opposition's expensive and ineffective ''Direct Action'' proposal would see a tax – not on big polluters – but on ordinary Australians.
Under the Gillard government's Clean Energy Future Plan, Australia is playing our part and doing our fair share in tackling climate change, and we welcome the agreement at Durban to develop a legal climate change framework that will apply to all countries.
