Dec 12: Australian Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said climate change today has been the defining problem while addressing the world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali and Australia would respond in positive manner.
He told that Australia would commit to set short and medium term real targets to slash greenhouse gases, after the Garnaut review is finished next year.
Mr. Rudd was highly praised by the delegates after he submitted the instrument of ratification of Kyoto Protocol to the United Nation Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. He said that I have done this because I know the real threat before the world in form of climate change. Climate change is now one of the greatest moral and economic challenges of our times. It is no longer a distant threat but it is emerging reality.
In citing example of this threat he said in Australia, our inland rivers are dying, bushfires are becoming fiercer and more frequent. Unfortunately it is not an order of the day in Australia only; it is a familiar story across the globe.
"This is therefore a problem which requires a global solution. We must all share the burden. The costs of action are far less than the costs of inaction”, Mr. Rudd opines.
Australia understands its responsibility and is ready to take the duty in responding to this challenge both at home and in further negotiations globally.
We are already committed to reducing greenhouse gas emission by 60 percent by 2050. But all that depends on the review made out by Ross Garnaut that slashing would be divided between short terms and mid term targets.
A negotiation at Bali Conference is significant in view of a draft proposal at the UN conference which calls for developed nations to aim to reduce global emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Mr. Rudd said that Bali conference must result in shared work for the shared global cut in the greenhouse gas emissions.
He further said, “We expect all developed countries to embrace a further set of binding emissions targets and we need this meeting at Bali to map out a process and timeline for this to happen. We need developing countries to play their part with specific commitments for action.”
Rudd said, according to speech notes. ``We need developing countries to play their part - with specific commitments for action.
Australia 's target under the Kyoto accord is to limit growth in greenhouse-gas emissions to an 8 percent increase above 1990 levels over the 2008-2012 periods.
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