Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

He says, ‘Just ratify it.’ He has never read it. The problem with Kyoto is that it does not provide an environmentally effective outcome. Kyoto may be amended, and we hope it will be. We will be part of that. We want to amend Kyoto. We want to have an environmentally effective treaty. But the treaty we have at the moment is not environmentally effective, and that is demonstrated by the fact that its achievement will be a reduction not in the total amount of emissions but in the growth of emissions—from 41 per cent over the period to 40 per cent. That is what Kyoto will achieve. It has not worked. You can say it was a first attempt, you can give it points for trying, but we have to do so much better than that—and what we have achieved with the Sydney declaration is the first big step. We will roll on from this meeting in Sydney to the meeting in Washington, where we will have the biggest emitters in the world together—the top 15 emitters, who represent 85-odd per cent of global emissions. What is the commitment there? What is the aim there—and, of course, that has been made a lot easier thanks to the Sydney declaration: the aim is to work towards a global goal and then, having done that, work towards agreement on who is going to do what and how we are going to make it all stack up. Reaching that realisation is so important; without it, we cannot achieve the massive industrial and technological transformation that we need to achieve a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.

The honourable member for Kingsford Smith claims the government has done nothing. He keeps on saying we have done nothing. But let us look at some of the things we have done. We will meet our Kyoto target; most of the countries that have ratified Kyoto will not. What about forestry? The Global Initiative on Forests and Climate has put the forestry agenda at the top of the climate change debate for the first time. Deforestation in general and avoided deforestation in particular had been almost entirely negotiated in the Kyoto protocol process and widely acknowledged as being a failing of Kyoto. It is Australia that has led the way in putting that on top of the agenda. Thanks to our cooperation with Brazil, Indonesia, the US, Japan and many other countries around the world, we know that when we come to Bali we will have a new international arrangement which will ensure that forestry is treated properly.

Why is forestry so important? Global emissions from deforestation account for 20 per cent of total emissions. If we reforest we can do something about it now. We can take action right here, right now. We do not have to wait for the development of new technologies. The technology we need, we have. We are setting up a global system of forest and carbon monitoring which will work with like-minded countries around the world. What will that enable us to do? It will enable us to connect for the first time the vast pools of money, the billions of dollars, available for carbon dioxide abatement with sustainable forestry practices in the developing world.

There is a very good example of that in the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, which the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Indonesian counterpart signed, and the President of Indonesia and I witnessed the signing of, in Sydney on Sunday. That initiative will result in the abatement of 700 million tonnes of CO emissions—more than our total emissions—through preserving 70,000 hectares of Indonesian peat land forests, reflooding 200,000 hectares of dried peat land and planting up to 100 million new trees on rehabilitated peat land. That is practical action on the ground.

This global initiative on forestry is a world-leading effort. It can be described in no other way, other than by the member for Kingsford Smith, who, when it was announced, sneered and said, ‘It’s a modest effort.’ That is one world-leading effort, without any question. In his contribution, the member for Kingsford Smith talked about energy efficiency. No doubt because he had to rush into the chamber and could not get all his notes together, he lost the page that referred to Australia being the first country in the world to move to phase out inefficient incandescent lighting. That has been a high priority for everybody committed to energy efficiency for some time. But it took Australia to take the leadership and move to phase out inefficient lighting. Australia was the first country in the world to do it. That was not mentioned by the member for Kingsford Smith. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story—that is his motto.

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