Copenhagen hands Kevin Rudd an emissions trading scheme dilemma

The government has now conceded it will not be able to set its own emissions-reduction target until February at the earliest.

That complicates its attack on Tony Abbott’s “direct action” climate plan, which is based on trying to prove that it would be a more expensive, less efficient way to meet the national target.

The failure of Copenhagen to set clear timetables or targets will strengthen the Opposition Leader’s claim that Copenhagen was always a false deadline for the passage of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Mr Abbott yesterday described the final outcome of the talks as an “unmitigated disaster” for Kevin Rudd and a vindication of the opposition’s anti-ETS position.

“Kevin Rudd was very unwise to try to rush Australia into prematurely adopting a commitment in the absence of similar commitments from the rest of the world,” the Opposition Leader said.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong accused Mr Abbott of “willing the talks to fail”.

She said the government remained committed to reintroducing into parliament in February the CPRS negotiated with the Malcolm Turnbull-led Coalition, prior to his axing as opposition leader.

The government will, in the meantime, be forced to decide its final emissions-reduction goal in private talks with other countries.

These bilateral talks are necessary because of the Copenhagen summit’s failure to set targets or timetables to cut greenhouse gases.

The so-called Copenhagen Accord, which continues to be bitterly opposed by some countries and was finally only “noted” by the UN meeting, sets out the range of emissions-reduction promises that developed and developing countries have already made – in Australia’s case, cuts of between 5 and 25 per cent by 2020.

Senator Wong said major economies, many of which, like Australia, had made promises dependent on what others would do, would now have to talk privately about what final target each would take.

The talks would occur after all countries had submitted their pledges by a deadline of February 1.

“We will have to work with other nations to make clear what people are prepared to put forward under the Copenhagen Accord . . . these are discussions that will continue between the countries who back this agreement, which include the majority of the world’s nations and the majority of the world’s economies,” Senator Wong said as she prepared to leave the Danish capital.

While the CPRS retains support from some key business groups and the powerful Australian Workers Union – the AI Group and AWU boss Paul Howes both yesterday continued to back the amended CPRS deal – the failure of Copenhagen has emboldened opponents of the scheme.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Coal Association yesterday called for a rethink of the government’s plans in the wake of the Copenhagen summit.

ACCI chief executive Peter Anderson said: “We now have the green light from the global community to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of what Australian industry is already doing, of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme versus the direct action ideas the Abbott-led Coalition might come up with, and versus other options or policy mixes comparable nations might develop.”

Australian Coal Association chief executive Ralph Hillman said the coal industry’s treatment under the CPRS should be rethought as Copenhagen had left the issue of burden-sharing of emissions cuts among countries “ambiguous”.

Mr Hillman said any ambitions for Australia to lift its emissions reduction towards 15 per cent from its current unconditional 5 per cent should be “put on the backburner” pending the signing of binding agreements.

The weak and non-binding accord, muscled through by US President Barack Obama after a day of desperate bargaining to salvage something from the much-hyped meeting, aims to stop global temperatures from rising by more than 2C, but does not specify the cuts needed to get there, and allows developing countries to monitor their own emission reductions and report them to the UN every two years.

The deal promises to deliver $US30 billion in aid over the next three years to combat global warming in the poorest countries.

One of the Australian government’s preconditions for cuts of more than 5 per cent is that developed and developing nations must make their emission reduction promises part of an “international agreement”.

So how the UN picks up the pieces after Copenhagen’s divided and confusing conclusion is likely to be critical to what Australia ultimately decides.

An extraordinary game of brinkmanship between the world’s superpowers and biggest greenhouse gas emitters – the US and China – saw Mr Obama finally clinch a deal with China, India, South Africa and Brazil for a watered-down agreement brokered earlier with more than 20 countries, including Australia.

Mr Obama then unilaterally announced the deal at a private news conference for US journalists, and flew out of Copenhagen late on Friday night.

Developing countries – outraged at the process and the weak content of the deal – threatened to block it when it was presented to the meeting for approval.

Angry debate continued through the night until the accord was finally “noted” late on Saturday morning, Copenhagen time.

Sudan, Venezuela, Bolvia, Nicaragua and Tuvalu blocked the accord from being adopted by the meeting.

The Australian-based negotiator for Tuvalu, Ian Fry, said the money being offered from a proposed climate change fund for poor countries was not enough to make up for the effect on the small island of rising seas.

“In biblical terms it looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our future and our people – our future is not for sale,” Mr Fry said.

In a statement, Sudanese negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping said it was “a solution based on the very same values, in our opinion, that channelled six million people in Europe into furnaces”.

And a Venezuelan negotiator cut her own hand, asking if she had to bleed to be able to speak.

The accord does little to advance moves to try to get legally binding treaties covering developed and developing nations, which was the summit’s main aim, but according to leaders it avoids the “disaster scenario” of negotiations for binding treaties being closed down.

Developed nations now hope that a binding deal can be sealed at next November’s conference in Mexico.

Mr Rudd conceded that, at times during the chaotic negotiations, disaster had been close.

“There was a very strong parallel push to see this thing not produce anything, and to collapse the negotiations,” the Prime Minister said.

“We prevailed. Some will be disappointed by the amount of progress. The alternative was, frankly, catastrophic collapse of these negotiations.”