Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

In fact, the declaration reads:

We agree to work to achieve a common understanding on a long-term aspirational global emissions ... goal ...

Under the Howard government and with the Prime Minister’s extremely clever and cunning use of words, the agreement to achieve a common understanding—the agreement to look at something—has actually become the agreement on the need for a ‘long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal’. The Prime Minister repeated it in question time today. Doubtless he will repeat it again. But no such agreement was made.

At the most recent United Nations climate change meeting in Geneva, one very similar agreement was made—one, incidentally, which set a figure for emissions reductions. That is something which the Sydney declaration did not do. China was present at this Geneva meeting and it was agreed that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, well below half the levels in 2000, by the middle of the 21st century. The Sydney declaration, instead, was high on aspiration but low on delivery.

Additionally, at the G8 meeting earlier this year we had the UK, the US, China, Russia, Canada, Japan and other countries—and the Plus Five group—reiterating the need to engage major emitting economies on how best to address the challenge of climate change, to continue to meet with high-level representatives of these and other major energy consuming and greenhouse gas emitting countries and to consider the necessary components for successfully combating climate change. The dialogue will support the UN climate process and report back to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

That was the rub in the Sydney declaration, and the minister and others opposite well know it. What was clear and what came out of the Sydney declaration was that it is the UNFCCC that will be the pathway by which a global emissions treaty is negotiated. The Prime Minister was at pains to lessen the anticipation of that and has spoken disparagingly about it in the past. But, in fact, that was the case, and it was made very clear by the Chinese Premier on a number of occasions.

We had the so-called aspirational goals, the aspirational targets that the foreign affairs minister says is code for a political stunt. What hypocrisy! Labor has said all along that we ought to have targets here and we ought to support targets globally. That is the pathway to reducing emissions internationally. The countries of the world and the people of Australian know it. We are in good company. The Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change has shown that a 60 per cent cut in emissions can be achieved without strong impacts on economic growth —in fact, whilst maintaining economic growth. News Ltd has set a target of being carbon neutral by 2010. Recently the Australian Business and Climate Group, BP, Rio Tinto, Anglo Coal, Santos and many others stated a long-term aspirational goal for reducing greenhouse gases is essential. It cannot be any clearer. Neither can the support from major corporate bodies in this country be any clearer. Yet still the minister and the Prime Minister on the other side of the House push the government line that to have an aspirational target or a target of any kind for this country would be damaging to our economy.

We have said all along that UNFCCC and building on the Kyoto protocol was the right path, and in fact the Sydney declaration confirms this. The government has forgotten, I think, that it actually did once have a target, and I am looking forward to the minister confirming this. I wonder if he is aware of the Liberal Party’s 1989 document A fair go for the environment, which was signed off by Andrew Peacock. I refer to the Senate Hansard of 6 December 1989 and a speech by Chris Puplick, who said:

Let me remind you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that it was the commitment given by the coalition parties to work for a 20 per cent targeted reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2000 ...

Eighteen long years later we are faced with the charade on the other side of the House. The government is running a line that Australia should not have a target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Where are we heading when the government is so tired and is forced into such contortions that it cannot do anything other than defend the lack of a target here in Australia, which is Labor policy, and promote the idea of a target in other parts of the world?

Here is an inconvenient truth: during this term of parliament alone the Howard government will spend about the same amount on advertising—about $850 million—as it has on climate change since 1996, about $867 million. That is called spending priorities and recognising the importance of an issue like climate change! The greenhouse gas emissions in the minister’s own department have risen by some 14 per cent. They are not my words; they are the figures from the minister’s department’s annual report. Then there is the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, the AP6. On closer examination, the AP6 really appears to be an AP2. There is barely any money committed to it and it is a drop in the ocean compared with the Kyoto $6 billion generated under the clean development mechanism that the minister likes to constantly criticise. Some $2 million has been spent and most of it, it seems, on administration.

The absolute bare truth in the climate change debate is simply this: the Howard government has had 11 years to take resolute action on climate change and it has done no such thing. It denies, it runs sceptical lines and then it tries spin. The fact is that it has spent millions—not billions—on climate change. It has spent less than 0.05 per cent of the annual federal budget. That is about $5 a year for every man, woman and child in Australia.

The government’s problems on climate change are systemic. They cannot bring themselves to accept that we should ratify Kyoto and sit at the table and influence the negotia-tions. They cannot bring themselves to accept that a target is a perfectly reasonable public policy position to have. And some of them cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that, yes, we have created green-house gas emissions that are contributing to global warming and that global warming will produce significant impacts on our economy, our environment and our society. We need to take some responsibility for this right here in Australia right now in 2007. That is the bottom line in this debate.

I advise the House that Labor is ready, willing and able to tackle dangerous climate change. There are things a Rudd Labor government would do. We would restore Australia’s international leadership on climate change, immediately ratify Kyoto and provide $150 million within the aid budget to assist our Pacific neighbours to adapt to climate change. We would develop a carbon market and reform our institutions. We would lead by example. We would drive a clean energy renewable revolution. We would increase the mandatory renewable energy target, now languishing under this government—the renewable industry has to go overseas. We would be fair dinkum about climate change. We would meet the climate change challenge—something that a tired, 11-year-old Howard government has no possibility whatsoever of doing.

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