|
November’s COP6 in The
Hague, Holland, should have developed the rules and mechanisms for GHG
to be reduced, but it ended in
a shambles, the only agreement made being to meet in Bonn in May
2001 to try again.
The Australian government, through the Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
(DFaT) claims that Australia played a ‘constructive and central’
role in the conference, and that agreement at COP6 was not reached because
the European Union (EU) would not agree with the ‘Umbrella group’
that Australia belongs to, with US, Japan and Canada.
But the Climate Action Network Australia (CANA), an alliance of 25+
environmental, health, community development, and research groups from
throughout Australia, sees the Australian government position as a significant
factor in the failure of the talks and its persistent efforts to weaken
the Kyoto Protocol treaty and push for rules that allow pollution increases,
as driven by the narrow self-interests of their big polluting companies.
“History will remember these nations (the ‘Umbrella Group’)
as climate vandals.”
The European Union, which said that the environmental integrity of the
treaty was its number one priority, had not been able to agree to the
proposals put by the large polluting nations. The developing nations
represented under the”G77" banner also expressed concerns.
As well as trying to ‘push the envelope’ on GHG, the Australian
government argued that nuclear power should not be excluded from the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
The CDM is a way for a country to offset its own GHG emissions against
GHG-reducing developments that it promotes in another country. “Clean”
refers only to GHG production - ignoring other extremely ‘dirty’
problems such as long-lived highly radioactive nuclear wastes.
If the Australian government’s position re nuclear power as a CDM
were to be adopted into the rules of emission trading, this would greatly
benefit the nuclear industry.
World
Information Service on Energy claims it would make nuclear energy
about 40% cheaper and that at least two nations, China and Brazil,
have said they will not expand their nuclear energy industry until
they know they will win carbon credits for it.
WISE Communiqué # 540, Dec 2000
Despite Australia’s
shameful stance, however, a draft starting position was achieved, that
countries will “refrain from using nuclear facilities to generate
certified emission reduction credits” under the CDM. However at
future meetings (Bonn in May and then at COP7 in Oct-Nov in Morocco)
this could go either way, after high pressure and well-funded lobbying
from the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear governments such as Australia.
This concern with economics,
rather than environment, is no surprise given the predominantly economic
or business career backgrounds of the Australian negotiating team, including
the Ambassador for the Environment Mr Ralph Hillman. We need to watch
our negotiating team of 20 as closely as we can in the time ahead.
NUKING
THE GREENHOUSE
Some nuclear industry spin doctors claim that nuclear energy produces
no greenhouse gases. True, the running of a nuclear power station does
produce only a tiny fraction of the GHG produced by fossil fuel power
stations, but GHG produced in u-mining, transport from remote areas,
construction and decommissioning of nuclear reactors all adds up. And
that’s before you even think about accidents - the energy wasted
in the abandonment of whole towns (such as those around Chernobyl) and
the re-housing of millions of people etc.
But we should refuse to play
this GHG maths game as our position is loud and clear - that we won’t
swap one deadly form of ecocide for another. We must conserve energy
and switch to renewables without delay.
Rob Gulley
|
JARGON WATCH...
COP6 The
sixth Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate
Change. (COP7 will be held in Oct-Nov this year in Morocco)
GHG greenhouse gases
CDM clean development mechanism
DFAT (Australian) Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
NGO non-government organisation. These aren’t all ‘good guys.’
They include business, as well as community organisations
The Australian
government position on global climate change seems to be ‘driven by
the interests of a small number of mining and energy companies and fails
to reflect the long-term national interest or the views of the Australian
community’.
Climate Action Network Australia
|
