Is Australia Faking It? The Kyoto Protocol and the Greenhouse Policy Challenge

While Australia has signed both the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, it has failed to ratify the latter. It is nevertheless committed to meeting its 18% Kyoto target for greenhouse gas emissions, and argues that it is on track to doing so. This paper examines Australia's non-ratification politics and greenhouse policy efforts in an attempt to explain its contrary position of resisting Kyoto, yet embracing and pursuing its emission reduction targets. Australia's behavior as a carbon-intensive nation is highly significant in the global context, and this paper focuses on the domestic factors of interests, ideas and institutions, while also considering international factors in trying to explain Australia's non-ratification of Kyoto and climate change policy development. It finds that while ideas and institutions have been modifying influences in the domestic context, political and economic interests have dominated Australia's greenhouse policy.