MELBOURNE: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said his country will not make any commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions until next year despite ratifying the Kyoto protocol, and declared that results of the ongoing UN climate conference in Bali would not be felt for at least two years.
As the prime minister prepared to fly out this morning to address the conference, he said the purpose of the Bali summit was to agree "on a road map for the next couple of years, within which countries then embark upon long-term commitment".
Rudd said on Monday that there were a range of issues to address before agreeing to international targets, including considering a report by economist Ross Garnaut on the impacts of emission cuts, according to "The Australian" newspaper on Tuesday.
The summit has already heard calls for cuts from developed countries of between 25 and 40 per cent, which Rudd said would not necessarily be binding on Australia.
"First and foremost within Australia, we have the Garnaut report, which is not due to report until the middle of next year," he said, adding "That's an important and sober way to consider appropriate interim targets for Australia and we will wait, as is appropriate, for the conclusion of that report before we start making any determinations along those lines."
Before the election, the states commissioned Garnaut to look at a carbon trading system and other cuts, which would reduce Australia's contribution to greenhouse gases.
Garnaut said last night it was unlikely the key players in Bali would pressure Rudd to immediately commit to a post-Kyoto target.
"I don't think that serious participants in the international process will expect the new Australian Government, just a week after being signed in, to go further than what the Rudd Government is prepared to go," Garnaut said.
There have been suggestions at the summit, designed to provide a direction for negotiations, that interim targets of 25 to 30 per cent cuts by 2020 be adopted in Bali.
But Rudd said these figures had been arrived at "on the basis of the deliberations of technical officers", which had not been accepted by governments as targets either individually or collectively.
"As I said prior to the election, when it comes to the determination of our targets, they will be driven by the outcomes of the Garnaut report, which Labor had the foresight to commission six months before this election," Rudd said.
UN Convention on Climate Change chief Yvo de Boer last night backed the inclusion of targets, saying it would help provide investment certainty.
"That is going to be a critical part of the discussion on the future, and it's in the interests of everyone that we walk away from here with a clear sense of where we think this process is going to take us," he said.
Environmentalists have been lobbying the Rudd Government to back the reference to targets to show Australia is serious about acting on climate change beyond its symbolic ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
"It's incredibly important the negotiating range of 25 to 40 per cent emission reductions stays in the text," said Greenpeace campaigns manager Steve Campbell.
