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7 Climate Clever? Kyoto and Australia’s Decade of Recalcitrance Kate Crowley It is not in Australia’s interests to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The reason it is not in Australia’s interests to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is that, because the arrangements currently exclude—and are likely under present settings to continue to exclude—both developing countries and the United States. For us to ratify the protocol would cost us jobs and damage our industry. That is why the Australian Government will continue to oppose ratification.1 Prime Minister, John Howard, 2002 Introduction Until 2007 only two developed nations had refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the United States and Australia, and while their positions on the international stage seemed remarkably similar, at the domestic level they diverged significantly. The key difference, it is argued here, was that while Australia refused to ratify, it was nevertheless committed to meeting its Kyoto target of an 8 percent increase of greenhouse gas emissions by 2008–2012. This could only have made sense to the Coalition government if pursuing this target did not damage jobs, industry, and the economy, and throws into question the effectiveness of its domestic plans for reducing emissions. This chapter argues that Australia’s pursuit of its Kyoto target was symbolic, “climate clever”2 rhetoric designed to play to a concerned domestic audience, and that achieving the target has only been possible because of land use changes rather than any real effort such as restructuring the energy industry. Given the lack of action to reduce emissions, this also throws into question the Coalition government ’s claims that its +8 percent target represented a 17 percent cut in projected business-as-usual emissions on 1990 levels to 2012, with emissions otherwise growing 25 percent without the Kyoto target. If this were true, there would be evidence of massive policy efforts to reign in energy emissions, where in fact there has been none. 202 Kate Crowley There is a critical need, therefore, to link Australia’s international position on the Kyoto Protocol with its domestic policy agenda. Academic analysis of Australia’s position has tended to focus either on its recalcitrance at the international level or on its policy efforts at the domestic level, rather than on the more complex task of linking these levels.3 This chapter aims to make these links by considering international behavior, domestic policy, and the paradox that the Coalition government had not ratified the Kyoto Protocol but was pursuing its Kyoto target. The chapter employs both international relations and comparative politics approaches in exploring this global-domestic dynamic. It focuses on the politics and policies of the Coalition government , led by John Howard, prime minister in the decade from 1997 to 2007, from Australia’s signing of the Kyoto Protocol and the launching of greenhouse policy initiatives until the election of the Labor government . It examines Australia’s domestic circumstances and its argument for its +8 percent Kyoto target before examining its electoral, normative, and institutional context and then both the pathway to nonratification and domestic policy efforts. Australia’s climate change policy changed dramatically in late 2007 with the ratification of Kyoto by the newly elected Labor government, just in time for post-Kyoto talks in Bali and for its climate change minister to co-chair post-Kyoto roadmap negotiations. The normative tone of Australia’s rhetoric changed abruptly too, from self-interest to global citizenry, albeit with the caution of a new government, which is now being criticized for not embracing 25–40 percent global emission cuts on 1990 levels by 2020. Even so, from opposition Labor forged a new direction on climate change. Following the release of the Stern report, it held a national summit on climate solutions and commissioned analysis of the efficacy of future emissions cuts from Australian National University economist Ross Garnaut, delivered in 2008. Labor also campaigned in 2007 on an aggressive, innovative climate change platform, which forced significant concessions from the Coalition government. Both the Labor opposition and the Coalition government committed to domestic capand -trade emissions trading, but Labor committed to 60 percent emissions reductions from 1990 levels by 2050 and promised AU$3 billion in climate change funding over four years, tripling the government’s commitment. Labor’s announcement of a 20 percent mandatory renewable energy renewable target by 2020 drew a 15 percent target from the government, which had previously proposed to abandon its 2 percent...

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