I don’t talk about politics as opinions are personal, but when politics include climate change mitigation, I have to do so.
The victory yesterday of the Labour Party in Australia is very good news. The country will ratify the Kyoto Protocol and will also be present at the Bali talks in December to prepare the future of this protocol .
Australia was so far one of the last countries with the United States not to have ratified Kyoto which is only the first small step of climate change mitigation.
A few days before the beginning of these negotiations, this proves to be an excellent news for the fight against global warming and for this I would like to congratulate the new Australian Premier and his country.
As Associated Press states :
Newly elected leader Kevin Rudd moved quickly Sunday to bring Australia into international talks on fighting global warming, and to head off potentially thorny relations with the United States and key Asian neighbors.
The emphatic victory for Rudd’s Labor Party swings Australia toward the political left after almost 12 years of conservative rule, and puts it at odds with key security ally Washington on two crucial policy issues – Iraq and global warming.
The day after sweeping to power in general elections, Rudd went straight into work mode, holding meetings with government officials about the mechanics of signing the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
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Britain, New Zealand and Indonesia noted that Rudd’s election would boost international efforts to address climate change — ousted Prime Minister John Howard had refused to sign the Kyoto pact.
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Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat, also talked with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, accepting his invitation to attend a December U.N. meeting in Bali to map out the world’s next steps against climate change.
After a little research by using CARMA (see my previous article), I discovered that the country is relying very heavily on fossil fuels – mainly coal – to generate its electricity.
Indeed, the country’s electricity is generated by 88,87 percent by fossil fuels ; hydro accounts for 7.98 and other renewables for 1.68 percent.
The importance of coal can be explained by the fact that the country has huge reserves of this highly polluting material and is exporting tremendous amounts of it to China and India.
As I stated in a previous article, nuclear is not popular