Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday that his
country has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60
percent on 2000 levels by 2050.
Rudd made the remarks while addressing the opening session for a
high-level segment of the UN climate change conference in Bali, a
resort island of Indonesia.
He said his country is ready to assume responsibility in
responding to climate change challenge both at home and in the
negotiations that lie ahead across the community of nations.
"In my first fact as Prime Minister, I signed the formal
instrument for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol," he
said.
"I have just handed this instrument to the Secretary General of
the United Nations," he said, adding that "I have done this because
I believe that climate change is now one of the great moral and
economic challenges of our time."
He said climate change is no longer a distant threat for
Australia. It's no longer a scientific theory. "Our inland rivers
are dying; bushfires are more ferocious, and more frequent; our
unique natural wonders, -- the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, our
rainforests -- are now at risk," said Rudd.
"Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. Our
choice will impact all future generations. This is a global problem
that requires a global solution," he noted.
"It requires a multilateral solution. Unilateral action is not
enough. We must all shoulder our share of the burden," he
stressed.
"For too long skeptics have warned of the costs of taking action
on climate change. But the costs of action are far less than the
costs of inaction," he said.
"We must lift our national and international gaze beyond the
immediate horizon to comprehend the magnitude of the economic and
environmental challenge unfolding before us," said the prime
minister.
"Action to tackle climate change will not be easy. It will
require tough choices. And some of these will come at a political
price," he said.
He warned that "Unless we act, the long term costs will threaten
the security and stability of us all."
Australia will implement a comprehensive emissions trading
scheme by 2010 to deliver its short and medium term targets, which
will set the Australian economy "firmly" on the path to achieving
its commitment to a 60 percent reduction in emissions by 2050, he
said.
Rudd called for moving forward as a truly "United Nations" with
developed and developing nations working in the parallel, saying
"We expect all developed countries to embrace a further set of
binding emissions targets -- and we need this meeting at Bali to
map out the process and timeline for this to happen," he said.
"We need all developed nations -- those within the framework of
the Kyoto protocol and those outside that framework -- to embrace
comparable efforts in order to bring about the global outcomes the
world now expects of us."
Meanwhile, he said, "We must all respect the aspiration of
developing nations to secure their economic development and deliver
rising living standards for their people."
He concluded, "There is no other planet any of us can escape to.
We only have this one. And none of us can do it alone. The
generations of the future will judge us harshly if we fail."
Rudd arrived at Bali Tuesday as part of the Australian
delegation to the Dec. 3-14 U.N. climate change conference, which
is tasked with drawing up a roadmap for negotiations in the next
two years before the current phase of the Kyoto protocol expires in
2012.
The high-level segment of the U.N. climate change conference is
being attended by heads of state and government and environment
ministers, who are expected to make the final decision on an
international agreement on enhanced global action on climate
change.
The segment, due to conclude on Friday, was proceeded by a
series of sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC,
its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the
Kyoto Protocol.
The climate conference brings together representatives of over
180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and
nongovernmental organizations.
(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2007)
