Certainty required, uncertainty required: the Bali paradox

The Bali Conference on climate change is now being described as a 'road map' for further negotiations re the setting of emission reduction targets. The UN Secretariat wish is for a text to be initialled 'KMR' et al sometime this week which contains a committment for developed countries to reduce targets by 25-40% by 2020. This appears to be what the UN is defining as proceeding within the Kyoto framework.

This is an indication of how serious the post-Kyoto round of negotiations are. The non-binding position advocated by the US, Canada and Japan demands that a 'global goal' be pursued to cut emissions by 50% by 2050. Canada and Japan are unequivocally telling developing countries they must accept targets before they will sign on. This fit of pique stems from the Canadian government's skeptic attitude to climate change - it attempted to repudiate Kyoto and was forced by the opposition Liberals to pass a bill binding the Canadian government to cut emissions at gunpoint. The Calgary based Conservatives could best be described as the lumberjack-oil drillers alliance.

Japan has lost face from the failure of Kyoto, and has experienced problems with nuclear energy since an earthquake damaged a plant earlier this year. It is also exposed to Chinese and Indian development.

The US position is schizophrenic. Like Canada, opinion is divided between the progressive states allied to the Democratic Congress and the regressive Bush administration. The official US delegation is under Bush's imprimatur, but US politicians attending the conference include the guru Al Gore and John Kerry. Kerry's role appears to be emissary for the Democratic administration-in-waiting, saying that the US would accept binding targets of 25%+ at some point in the future.

Australia's vaciliation on binding targets stems from Rudd's committment to be economically responsible while ushering in revolutionary change. Nelson's ploy of ratifying Kyoto and then exploiting angst over short-term target pain is cheap politics and a decided headache for the PM.

Against this backdrop, the EU's alliance with China and a group of developing countries such as India, Brazil and South Africa acknowledges the necessity for action and their common philsophical belief that developed countries must accept targets before developing countries.

Rudd's position is a diplomatic tightrope that requires either an expedient piece of fudging or a leap of good faith. The clear import of the UN's desired negotiation range is that 25% would be the minimum target. The range is merely the set of numbers available under the common-but-differentiated principle that Kyoto utilised. Rudd is not going to jeopardise a global agreement, but nor is he going to look like a fiscal gambler so early in his term. Given Rudd needs the Garnaut report, due in June, to set a target, he would surely push to settle the target question at the next COP. His '60% target by 2050' could be the circuit breaker: if he can push for a compromise for the US, Canada and Japan to accept a binding 50% target by 2050, rather than a global goal, it might satisfy the developing-EU bloc.

This would explain why Rudd is making a procession of statements stating Australia is fair dinkum about climate change. It also explains why Greenpeace are accusing Australia of not going hard in pushing for the binding 25-40% negotiation range in the Bali text.

In spirit, the Rudd government wants to support the binding target range, but practicality demands it delay. The US in a state of flux pending its next presidential epoch. The other procrastinating nations may not be so sanguine.