The big electoral hoax

THE hoax of election 2007 is our sanctification of the Kyoto Protocol, a legacy of John Howard's folly, Kevin Rudd's distortions and the media's bias.

The great Kyoto irrationality is driven by two events. The first is Howard's epic blunder in refusing to change his mind and ratify, as there is no good reason for Australia not to ratify. And, second, contrary to every utterance from Rudd, the benefits for Australia from ratification are symbolic and devoid of practical meaning for climate change policy.

Rudd was caught out over Kyoto during the Sunday night debate. He faltered on the basic point: what was the benefit in ratifying Kyoto? Rudd, amusingly, seemed to have forgotten. This should not surprise because the benefit in ratifying Kyoto is ratifying Kyoto. Nothing else.

This debate is decoupled from real world public policy dividend. Kyoto has a universal standing as a goodwill gesture. It has the perfect image of wanting a better, cleaner world, with its opponents clinging to an older, polluted world. The power of such images cannot be denied.

But Howard has tried to deny it. His folly is unrelieved. In future years analysts will ruminate about the depth of Howard's stubborness over Kyoto in allowing his Government to be trashed during 2007 as Rudd presents himself as leader of the future, ready to ratify Kyoto. Howard has handed Rudd the "future" position, a gift on a silver tray.

There has been a periodic discussion within the Howard Government this year about Kyoto ratification. This was to be expected. After all, Howard's policy reversal on climate change during the past 12 months has been the most sweeping on any issue during his prime ministership.

Consider its scale. Having announced in late 2006 that climate change was "the biggest economic challenge of our time", Howard decided that Australia could no longer wait for the world. He commissioned a report and embraced its position: Australia will have a national emissions trading system by 2011-12, its target agreed next year, its coverage being a whopping 75 per cent of emissions, including fuel use in transport, far beyond European Union levels. Howard then launched a diplomatic campaign to win support at the APEC meeting for aspirational global targets and has endorsed a 15 per cent clean energy target by 2020.

This positions Australia, outside the EU, as a leader in climate change policy. But the public doesn't believe this for a moment. Neither does the media. As a professional politician Howard has transformed his policies, yet he cannot embrace the moralism and symbolism of the issue. His policies are never assessed on merit for a simple reason: he refuses to ratify Kyoto. Rudd has merely to utter the word Kyoto to win again and again.

Consider Howard's position. Should he ratify a protocol that is vastly popular and whose terms, as they apply to Australia, he is determined to honour and uphold? And his answer: absolutely not.

There is no political logic to such irrationality. Whenever Howard is asked why he won't sign Kyoto, his reply is that Australia will be disadvantaged. Pardon? We are pledged to meet our target of 108 per cent of emissions from 1990s levels anyway. We cannot be disadvantaged further.

Howard is psychologically paralysed on the issue. Rudd engages in amazing gymnastics of me-tooism across the spectrum, but Howard cannot perform me-tooism over Kyoto. He has made the reversal on policy but he cannot make the reversal on symbols.

As a consequence, he cannot reap any electoral gains.

Rudd's policy is remarkably similar to Howard's: an emissions trading system (though Rudd specifies a 60per cent reduction target by 2050), a stress on clean coal and a clean energy target (probably 20 per cent by 2020). But Rudd owns the politics of climate change because he has a monopoly on the symbols. Unlike Howard, he has not been a sceptic, he depicts climate change as a moral issue and he pledges to ratify Kyoto. What difference does Rudd think signing Kyoto will make? He says it will show "we are serious and want to help forge a global solution". An elusive and vague answer.

The risk for an incoming ALP government is falling for its own Kyoto propaganda. Labor seems genuinely unaware of Australia's activist diplomacy on climate change. Rudd's claim before the APEC meeting that its success would rest on an agreement over binding targets suggests he does not understand the global debate. The developing world rejects such binding targets.

A Rudd government will try to ratify Kyoto before the UN meeting in Bali in December to consider the post-2012 system. But ratification will make no difference to Australia's influence, a reality about which Labor has shut its mind.

The Kyoto Protocol applies only to industrialised nations and specifies binding targets for the 2008-12 period. Its defect is obvious: the developing world - notably China and India, where emissions are growing fastest - is exempt from any binding obligations. When Kyoto was negotiated, Australia's environment minister Robert Hill made a strong case for a pathway to involve developing nations in the process. That was rejected. So there is no legal hook in Kyoto to get developing nations, the big future emitters, into the negotiation. This is a legal-political problem for Australia, for Howard, for Rudd and for the world.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was negotiated as an addition to the foundation treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Australia is party to the treaty but has not ratified the protocol. Two years ago, talks began under the protocol for industrialised nations to negotiate deeper emissions reduction targets for post-2012. By definition, this does not involve developing nations. Such omission is untenable. It is why the existing Kyoto Protocol does not work and cannot succeed. From the start, this was Howard's critique of Kyoto and that critique is correct, a point now widely recognised.

Meanwhile, under the convention, there is also a non-binding dialogue under way on the decisive question of involving the developing world. There are two issues at stake: whether the dialogue can become a negotiation with developing nations and, if so, whether a negotiation can result in an agreement for the post-2012 period involving developing nations.

Such an agreement could be an amendment to the Kyoto Prococol or a new legal instrument.

This is, in short, a complex, agonising effort to overcome the fatal defects in the 1997 Kyoto system that misjudged the future growth rate of emissions from developing nations.

Australia's position is that there must be a broader negotiation for the post-2012 period. This is the position of the umbrella group of non-EU industrialised nations long chaired by Australia that includes Russia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. Labor's claim that Australia is sidelined from debate or influence because of our non-ratification of Kyoto is nonsense.

Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull explains Australia's position: "I am absolutely committed to Australia ratifying a new arrangement post-2012 that is globally effective, either an amended Kyoto or a new agreement."

This is the bedrock point. If Rudd becomes PM, his immediate ratification of Kyoto will be a gesture full of hype but devoid of substance.

Rudd's real task will be to amend the Kyoto Protocol to make it work. That is the essential obligation on any Australian PM, Liberal or Labor. It is a huge task. Given this, Rudd should start talking the truth and terminate the hoax about the great moral issue.