Al Gore has just accepted his Nobel Peace Prize for advocacy for action on climate change.
In his speech he’s lauded Kevin Rudd’s immediate commitment to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change – he did it only days after assuming office.
The move to ratify leaves the United States as the only developed nation opposed to the deal. By the sounds of things, Rudd’s had a bit of a hard time at the two week international climate change meeting in Bali – resisting pressure to commit Australia to the proposed wording of emmisions targets. However, the article above notes that “…if the overwhelming consensus of the talks is to back the targets, Australia may fall into line rather than not being part of the process, as happened after the Kyoto agreement was struck in 1997.”
So while it looks like Australia if finally playing ball after years of stalling from Howard, it’s unfortunate that Bush hasn’t even turned up at the Bali conference. Instead, Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry attended, saying:
“We wanted to bring to Bali the message that the United States is going to be at the table, the United States is going to lead, the United States is going to embrace significantly changed policies in order to deal with climate change,”.
Roll on January 20 2009.
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