He's not the Messiah

I can unite world on climate, says Rudd - Environment - smh.com.au

Unfortunately, it appears that headline is not a direct quote from our PM, just a paraphrase. That's a pity, as it would be quite funny for Kevin to start making silly grandiose statements so early in his Prime Minister-ship.

I note that Penny Wong is credited with having performed well in the election campaign, hence her reward of being made Climate Change Minister. (Sounds like it's her job to ensure climate changes happens.)

I don't know. I thought in any media appearances I have noticed she comes across as too earnest and humourless. Especially after her election night turn on the ABC, I can warm to Julia Gillard more readily, in the personality stakes anyway.

Penny has apparently received a fair bit of attention in reporting in China, but it is probably safe to assume this has not included details of her personal life yet. It will be interesting to see how (if ever) this is reported in Chinese media.

Back to Kyoto: this report in the Australian today did the useful service of explaining the issue of penalties under Kyoto in precise form. (I had become confused as to whether they really were a risk to any country.) Apparently not, is the answer:

experts outside the negotiating process think it is highly unlikely the UN will enforce the Kyoto caps because too many countries would be forced to pay up.

Deloitte emissions trading expert Lorraine Stephenson said a permit for each tonne of carbon over the limit would cost about $30 on current markets, putting Australia's potential Kyoto bill at up to $150 million.

That would be dwarfed by the bills facing other major industrialised countries such as Canada and Japan, which have already exceeded the targets they committed to when they ratified the protocol a decade ago.

On current projections, Canada would be required to pay about $6.8 billion to offset its projected 38 per cent blowout of its target. Japan would face a bill of about $4billion for being 10per cent over the limit.

European nations such as Greece and Ireland will avoid expensive Kyoto bills because the European Union will aggregate its total emissions.

The EU is expected to meet its target thanks to the inclusion of eastern Germany and the closure of the British coal industry in 1990, the baseline year for setting targets.

So, our risk of losing money is low. The risk of other countries worrying about missing targets is also low.

The effect of this treaty is that everyone agreed to try really, really hard. Many countries failed, by such a margin that they can't realistically be penalised.

But it's the symbolism! Yeah, great.

Supposedly, the great benefit of Australia signing is to be directly involved in fresh negotiations now. Well, what about the USA? Is it just being given "observer status" because it hasn't ratified. I don't think so. It has to be involved for there to be any meaningful outcome.

Regardless of what the Liberal leadership may now say, I still stick to my line that giving supremacy to the symbolism over the practical outcome is actually the thing that deserves cynicism.