Australia's leader said Tuesday he wants to consider an international carbon
trading system to fight global warming, signaling a shift toward a part of the
Kyoto agreement that he has steadfastly refused to ratify.
Prime Minister John Howard, who has recently made global warming part of the
mainstream debate in Australia after years of playing down the issue, said he
would be willing to consider the trading system to limit greenhouse gas
emissions - if it does not harm key resource-dependent industries.
"It's in Australia's national interest to play a part in reducing greenhouse gas
emissions but in a way that doesn't damage our vital industries, such as the
coal industry," said Howard, a U.S. ally whose objections to the Kyoto agreement
previously echoed those of President Bush.
Howard said he would raise the issue with leaders he meets in Hanoi, Vietnam,
later this week at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, including Bush.
Australia, the world largest coal exporter, and the United States are the only
major industrialized countries to reject the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which commits
35 nations and the European Community to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 5
percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Canberra and Washington say the pact would unfairly hamper their economies while
allowing developing countries like China and India - which are excluded from the
2012 target - to pollute freely.
"I'll certainly be talking about ... the need to move on from Kyoto, and talk
about the need ... to develop a (carbon-trading) system that takes into account
the legitimate interests of energy-rich countries such as Australia," Howard
told reporters.
Carbon-trading is central to the Kyoto pact. Under the system, member countries
agree to set limits on their greenhouse gas emissions, and can sell their carbon
allowance to other countries if they do not use their full entitlement.
Howard has not shifted his opposition to Kyoto, and until recently has opposed
carbon-trading, calling it a "carbon tax" that could harm Australia's exports of
fossil fuels. He has said Australia would join such a scheme only if the United
States, China and India were participating.
But in an apparent turnabout, Howard on Monday announced a joint
government-business task force that would examine "the form that an emissions
trading system here in Australia and globally might take in the years ahead."
"We do need to find, call it what you may, a new Kyoto. We do need, as a world
community, to try and find a new global solution, and that global solution must
include all of the major emitters," Howard said in speech late Monday.
On Tuesday, Howard said any new approach to climate change would have to take
into account "the needs of countries such as China," whose voracious appetite
for coal is helping drive Australia's economy.
Howard is expected to meet Bush on the sidelines of the two-day APEC summit,
which starts Saturday.
Australia's Greens party accused Howard of "stalling for time" to win credit
among voters ahead of a federal election due next year.
"Anyone can have discussions that go on for years but those who are genuinely
interested in moving forward on climate change have already ratified the Kyoto
Protocol," Greens party spokeswoman Christine Milne said.