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.