Australia: promises, promises, reality

Australia has undergone major political change in recent weeks and the Kyoto Protocol is now a headline topic. Under the former conservative regmine, Kyoto was not approved by Australia. The new Labor Party government had promised to ratify it, and after winning control, did so.

Now the fun begins. Trying to live up to Kyoto, after years of ignoring it, would cost Australia a lot. Can't do that, says the Labor government. So, after telling the world at the Bali climate conference that Australia was on board with Kyoto, the Aussies are now saying...well, we'll take a closer look at what we can do.

One reason for backing off any emission-cutting goals by 2020 is that green technologies aren't yet of scale or efficiency to deliver the needed electrical power without CO2 emissions. Australia has companies that are working on both solar and wave energy for generating electricity. They even have PLANS for a solar-powerd desalination plant.

Australia's currenty one of the three worst CO2 polluters as ranked by a European NGO.

Cost to the economy has always been an argument used by Kyoto nay-sayers in both China and the U.S. as well. Neither signed the Protocol. Real costs of cutting CO2 emissions? Now that's another topic for spin as we recently blogged. Sure, it'll cost money but that money goes to manufacturers, workers, and other producers of green tech so it isn't being incinerated, it's being circulated. Could be like building highways, or airports, or air conditioned suburbs in Las Vegas. And nobody would ever nay-say that.