We're not alone on climate

Adelaide Advertiser
Wednesday 24/2/2010 Page: 63

A PERCEPTION that Australia is trying to "go it alone" on greenhouse gas abatement is untrue and counterproductive, the country's climate change ambassador believes. Louise Hand, speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia lunch in Adelaide yesterday, said more than 30 countries already had an emissions trading scheme in place, and 69 countries, as part of the Copenhagen Accord, had submitted targets for greenhouse gas reductions by 2020. Ms Hand said she disagreed with the notion that last year's Copenhagen climate change summit was a failure because it did not end with a binding agreement on greenhouse gas reductions.

She said the ability to reach consensus was always going to be difficult, and was stymied in part by the emergence of a group dubbed "the basics" - India. China. Brazil and South Africa - which included some of the world's largest emitters, as well as the inherent difficulty in reaching consensus with so many countries involved "Their primary objective was to absolutely resist every effort on the part of the rest of the world, to have them sign up to.., legitimate emissions reductions, that the rest of the world could have some scrutiny over," she said. Under the circumstances, the accord, which was hammered out by 28 world leaders, was a significant achievement.

Its agreements include:

• Consensus that global temperatures cannot be allowed to increase by more than 2C.
• The setting up of a fund which initially will contribute up to $US30 billion over three years to developing countries vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
• A mechanism to combat deforestation be set up.

Ms Hand said that so far 103 countries had expressed support for the accord and this accounted for 80% of global emissions, with 69 countries so far submitting their 2020 targets. "It's not perfect, it's not entirely legally binding.., but it's well and truly the first step," she said. She took a shot at climate change sceptics, saying: "We can't delude ourselves that the sceptics are on the right side of history, because they're not, and the weight of science.., is against that."

SA Renewable Energy Commissioner Tim O'Loughlin said while the UN seemed to be competent at on-the-ground action, it was not so good at addressing policy issues such as climate change and world trade.