The Australian opposition Labor Party has selected a new, green leadership team to challenge the long-serving conservative Prime Minister John Howard in national parliamentary elections at the end of 2007. Kevin Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat, and his deputy, Julia Gillard, decisively defeated incumbent leaders Kim Beazley and Jenny Macklin.
But much of the attention is focused on Rudd's Sunday appointment of Peter Garrett, a Greenpeace board member and former lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil, to take charge of crafting Labor's new policies on climate change.
"Climate change represents one of the most significant and important issues that Australians must confront now and into the future," Garrett said. "I want to work for leader Rudd to make sure that we roll up our sleeves and do the very best that we can, and I want to put the Howard Government on notice that it's fiddling while Australia burns."
(See the International Herald Tribune and the Australia Broadcasting Corp for more.)
Like the U.S., Australia has never ratified the Kyoto Treaty, and Howard has long been an ally of the Bush White House on climate change. But the Australian public's concern about climate change has intensified after four years of intense drought, and Howard's government has starting making noises about carbon-trading and renewable energy. In November, a panel commissioned by Howard proposed lifting Australia's restrictions on nuclear energy and uranium mining. The commission advocated developing nuclear power and easing curbs on uranium mining, which it claimed could reduce carbon emissions from coal and lift revenues from uranium exports by $1.4 billion a year. It also advocated constructing 25 nuclear reactors to supply a third of Australia's electricity by 2050. (See the Gristmill discussion of the report.)
The labor party, traditionally opposed to uranium exports and adopting nuclear power as a means of reducing carbon emissions, is increasingly split on the issue, like much of the Australian public.
One critic of Labor's new willingness to think nuclear is the head of the Green Party, Bob Brown. "Our question to Peter is going to be, 'Will you stand for what you sang for and is the Labor Party going to be able to accommodate the extraordinary changes in policy that are required if this planet is to get out of the current dive in its environmental fortune?'" Brown reportedly said.
Garrett formerly headed the Australian Conservation Foundation, which holds vociferously negative positions on uranium mining and nuclear power. (See the ACF website.)
Comments
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Jason D Scorse Posted 12:13 pm
12 Dec 2006
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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Robert Delfs Posted 7:05 pm
12 Dec 2006
The (conservative) Liberal Party government has traditionally been negative on climate change and an important ally of the Bush White House on a range of issues, including environmental policy. After the US, Australia may be the most significant other developed economy in the world NOT to have signed the Kyoto Accord.
Australia has the world's largest known reserves of uranium, possibly 25-30% of the total world supply. At present, Australia doesn't export uranium, nor rely on nuclear power. That could change if the Liberal Party stays in power after next year's parliamentary election. Personally, I believe that a rapid nuclear power is our only chance of congtrolling carbon emissions in time to avoid catastrophic climate change, but many people here feel strongly otherwise. If Labor wins, Garrett would be expected to become the federal Minister of the Environment, and an volte face on nuclear would be less likely.
The Australian public appears to be going through a kind of sea-change on environmental issues at the moment, partly because of the horrendous drought that has afflicted the country for the past five years, which many attribute to global warming.
Autralia is the world's biggest exporter of coal (mainly to China) and one of the two biggest exporters of iron ore (to China and Japan). It's also huge in global agriculture - the 2nd largest wheat exporter, largest wool exporter, one of the world's biggest exporters of beef, lamb, and seafood. A government in Canberra committed to saner policies in areas such as carbon emissions, other forms of pollution, and the global food trade could be a non-trivial matter.
A significantly greener Labor government (or even a greener Liberal Party government, for that matter) could become a more influential player in environmental policy and affairs throughout the Asian region, including trading partners China and Indonesia as well as its close neighbor Indonesia.
(Acc. to Nature, forest and peat fires in Indonesia during the El Nino year 1997/98 resulted in the release of 2.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, roughly 42% of total world emissions that year. Jakarta desperately needs help in dealing with this, and I very much doubt that it will ever come from Washington DC.
Robert Delfs
Robert Delfs
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:14 am
13 Dec 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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missym Posted 9:30 pm
17 Dec 2006
According to his website:
"Peter served two terms as president of the Australian Conservation Foundation. In his first term, from 1989 to 1993, significant results were achieved for many threatened areas of the Australian environment including Coronation Hill in Kakadu, Shoalwater Bay in Queensland, the Queensland Wet Tropics rainforest and Jervis Bay in NSW. In his second term, the ACF grew strongly, developed partnerships with non-government organisations, progressive business groups and companies, and expanded its campaigning into marine conservation and northern Australia.
He received the Australian Humanitarian Foundation Award ( environment category) in 2000, and in 2003 received the Order of Australia (Member General Division) for his contribution to environment and the music industry."
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