Australia has baulked at taking a leading position on climate change by submitting a weak pollution reduction target to the Copenhagen Accord, said WWF- Australia CEO Greg Bourne.
"The Australian Government has bowed to the hype that Australia ‘should not do too much’, and has failed to raise its level of ambition to match what other countries have commited to," said Mr Bourne.
"This Government is locking us into a postion as a follower, not leader, and it’s our economy and our environment which will suffer because of this."
Countries responsible for creating the Copenhagen Accord and agreeing to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius must put ambitious targets on the table by the end of January.
"The targets put on the table at Copenhagen are not enough to stay below two degrees, instead they have set the world up for three degrees of warming or more. On Sunday when countries must confirm their carbon reduction targets we must see real commitment, not more games."
An analysis of developed country’s pledges (Annex 1) made in Copenhagen suggests global reductions of between 14 to 22 per cent on 1990 levels could be achieved by 2020.
WWF believes that even if other countries submit mitigation targets at the bottom of their ranges, the conditions for Australia to lock in a 15 per cent cut by 2020 have already been met. Yet the Australian Government refuses to move its minimum reduction above five per cent.
"Rather than risk doing to much, Australia now lags behind the rest of the world on reducing pollution, on clean energy development, and implementing an ETS," said Mr Bourne.
- Australia’s greenhouse emissions have increased by a massive 82 per
cent since 1990, making it the second worst performing country behind Turkey,
whereas developed countries (Annex 1) together have reduced their emissions by
5.2 per cent from 1990 . - Clean energy technology is on track to become the third largest
industrial sector globally, yet Australia is ranked 28 , way behind Denmark,
China, Brazil, Germany, the US and UK. - Australia remains one of the only developed countries without an ETS .
Of those countries remaining without an ETS, four, including the US, are in the
process of developing one.
Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF’s global climate initiative has made clear WWF’s concerns about the gap between rhetoric and action on climate change.
"For developed nations, who did the most to push the Copenhagen Accord, WWF fears that there is also still a gross mismatch between their goal of keeping the world out of climate danger and the steps they are prepared to take to actually achieve this goal."
Major emerging economies – the BASIC Group of Brazil, South Africa, India and China – last weekend announced they intended to meet the January 31 deadline with more detail on voluntary mitigation programmes under the accord.
"This is a very helpful move from this group of major developing countries. We expect they will announce high levels of ambition and follow up urgently with clear national action plans to meet this ambition," Carstensen said.
WWF-International today released The Copenhagen Accord: A Stepping Stone analysing how the world might begin the journey from the political agreement of the Copenhagen Accord to an internationally binding climate treaty in Mexico City in December.
The global environment organisation also said it was still waiting on urgently required announcements under the accord on financial aid to help developing countries prevent and cope with climate change.
"There is a general awareness that the world failed to do what it needed to do in Copenhagen," Carstensen said.
"But climate change is not a problem that will go away. Instead it is a problem that will get worse and more costly to deal with the longer we delay effective action."
More information
More detail on the Copenhagen Accord, how it might lead to a binding international climate agreement, the shortfalls between emissions reductions commitments to date and what is needed to keep below the two degree danger limit can be found in The Copenhagen Accord: A Stepping Stone? which can be found at http://assets.panda.org/downloads/the_stepping_stone_final_280110.pdf
Jonathon Larkin, WWF Media Officer, 0410 221 410, [email protected],
Kellie Caught, WWF Climate Change Policy Manager, [email protected], 0406 383 277.