I am surprised that so many people think so much of the Kyoto protocol, which is a sweetheart deal between the third world and the EU, and which particularly disadvantages Australia (because we are the only country in Annex 1 which is an energy exporter). Under Kyoto if we burn a kilo of our coal we take the blame; fair enough. But if we export the same kilo to Japan and they burn it, we STILL get the blame. On the other hand, if Japan imports the coal from South Africa, NO-ONE gets the blame. If we decide to reduce our emissions by shutting down our coal industry and telling our customers to buy their coal from South Africa, our calculated emission levels would be greatly reduced, but the CO2 released into the atmosphere would not be reduced by one molecule. It is the insane method of calculating emissions that is the achilles heel of Kyoto. Faced now with the situation where more than half of pollution comes from the third world (remember this includes India,China and forest clearing in Indonesia) we need a better agreement that will result in genuine warming gas reductions.

If the post by Plerdsus is true, then Mr Mcneil's article berating the Australia and the USA for not signing up to Kyoto is quite mis-leading. The CDM rather than undermining Kyoto is actually doing us all a favour. With such a dopey system of carbon accounting it is no wonder people are sceptical.

Plerdsus,

You know not of what you write; behind your nom de plume,

a) Where in the Kyoto Protocol does it say Australia gets the ‘blame’ for Japan burning a kilo of Australian coal in their power stations?

b) Does more than half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from “the third world”, as you say?

You’ve been mislead mate, and you are unwittingly misleading your readers.

Show us references.

Show us proof.

Pathetic claims made to peddle ideological beliefs help no one!

And gee, historically, what proportion of greenhouse gas emissions have come form, what you would call, “first world” countries?

To our Forum,

The latest publication of the "Guardian" has a glaring introduction - "Climate change alarm as Siberian permafrost melts for the first time since the ice age"

Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes.

Climate scientists have reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global heating will have to be revived upwards. In its last major report in 2001, the intergovernmental panel on climate change predicted a rise in global temperatures of 1.4C-5.8C between 1990 and 2100, but the estimate only takes account of global warmig driven by known greenhouse gas emissions. Dr Stephen Sitch, a British climate scientist, says that the methane seep from the melting permafrost would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas over the next 100 years.

Looks like we should all stop quibbling about whether Kyoto was or is genuine or not and start listening to the climate scientists for a change, without anyone else or any country's political representative claiming it knows the best way to go about it.

Regards - Bushbred

Here we go again.Have a look at a report from the Russkies themselves which gives the lie to the claim about the tundra melting

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050822/41201605.html.

Also is the Plerdsus claim about how the coal is accounted for true or false? I thought what he described was precisley the reason Australia refused to sign Kyoto ie we get booked for coal we export but it depends upon to whom it goes. That is basically dopey stuff.

To put it plainly, Australia is only accountable for what it emits within Australia -NOT what it exports. Here is the link to the Kyoto Protocol (http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html), do a search for 'export or exporters' and you find nothing.

plerdsus doesnt know what he is talking about and is seriously misleading.

If there was that 'export' rationale then OPEC countries (mainly Saudia Arabia) would be directly accountable for most of the greenhouse gas emissions by cars/planes/tranes in the world (because it controls the oil supply). The US for example wouldnt be accountable at all for their emissions from Hummers or SUVS as they could simpy say 'it's Saudia Arabias fault for supplying us with the oil - not what we drive!'. That is a ludicrous argument and plerdsus seems to be emanating selective bias.

Finally, Australia got a good deal from Kyoto as they were one of only two nations that could be actually increase there emissions by 8% beyond 1990 levels.

BIM is right. Exporting nations are not held accountable for fuel exports. Canada has been trying for years to get gas exports to the US recognised at the UNFCCC as benefitting it's own account, but to no avail.

As for Australia's reason for non-ratification, perhaps a blend of industry & U.S. pressure. See the leaked LETAG minutes taken by rio for insight into the PMs (and, interestingly, rio's) ambitions on greenhouse - simply to 'pass the pub test' - his words, apparently.

In this context, it is clear that the ambition set out in the pre-election Liberal party manifesto in 2004 to seek an asia-pacific climate initiative was purely for these electoral purposes - to blunt SMH and Labour attack in this regard.

Unfortunately, as well as being most probably a toothless initiative, it is helping to undermine planning for more ambitious planning at a crucial stage of negotiations by seemingly providing a credible alternative for policy-makers to fall back on in the face of difficult decisions. Ben McNeil is right.....

It's a pity that Ben doesn't know much about the rules set up for the CDM. The process is so laden-down with bureacracy and red tape as to make most proposed projects commercially unviable. So much for it being a mechanism that will promote technology transfer.

In contrast, the explicit aim of the Clean Development Initiative is to make such transfers more feasible. It will do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol.

plerdsus, you really should check facts before posting.

Kyoto is very clearly limited to domestic emissions. Every gram of coal we export is calculated in the emissions profile of the importing country. We don't have to even think about it.

This leads us to one of the greatest ironies of the Howard Government's position. They argue loudly that we won't ratify the Protocol until developing nations have binding targets, while happily increasing exports of coal to China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, etc.

Of course, Kyoto will have a limited impact, but that's because it was always meant as a first step. It quite deliberately applies only to the five year period of 2008-12, known as the first commitment period. During this period, we lucky rich folk are supposed to demonstrated our commitment by cutting our emissions by a small but significant amount.

After this, developing nations, particularly the richer amongst them, will be expected to join the party and start meeting binding targets themselves.

CDM and the other technology transfer mechanisms are intended to help get developing countries on the path to emissions reductions.

The new Asia Pacific Partnership (which is rather in the doldrums now, anyway) has absolutely no mechanism to recuce emissions, either domestically or internationally. It's PR.