U.S., Australia Offer Weak Commitment to Environment

The United States and Australia capped the end of the Asia-Pacific climate summit in Sydney this week by pledging $127 million to support technology projects that would lower greenhouse-gas emissions—$75 million from Australia and $52 million from the U.S.—and recommending that the job of lowering greenhouse-gas emissions be left to industry.
_{Photo courtesy of Ronnie Bergeron}

Environmentalists criticized the commitment from two of the world’s largest polluters as absurdly inadequate, and labeled the summit a stunt by the two countries to divert attention from their refusal to support the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol is expected to generate investments of $12 billion for clean-technology projects in developing countries by 2012. The agreement also legally binds many of the world’s industrialized countries to specific targets for lowering their greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012.

Ironically, environmentalists say, most of the funding committed by Australia and the U.S. will be used to support the fossil fuel industry instead of advancing proven sources of clean, renewable energy.

Naturally, the U.S. and Australia see all of these issues quite differently. Both countries contend that the people of the world should trust big business to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions voluntarily, without strong government regulations.

Said U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman: "The people who run the private sector, who run these companies, also have children and grandchildren, and they too live and breathe in the world and would like [climate change] dealt with effectively."

Read more:

Trust Firms on Climate, say Leaders -- The Sydney Morning Herald

U.S., Australia Back Global Warming Plan -- The Washington Post