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Australia's exemption to Kyoto treaty
Australia and the environment
Timber
Jan 15th 1998 | SYDNEY
From The Economist print edition
ASK who does most to turn the world into a greenhouse, or to kipper its neighbours by burning its forests, and the answer will probably be Brazil or Indonesia. Yet Australians have been cutting down their native forests at a rate that some claim is second only to Brazil�s. For generations, rural Australians have regarded land-clearing as a God-given right. It is not one that will be given up easily.
The United Nations conference on climate change in Kyoto in December set targets to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which cause global warming. Whereas most rich countries agreed to cut their emissions below 1990 levels by 2010, Australia emerged with a singular concession that allowed it to raise its emissions by 8% above 1990 levels by 2010. The country's land-clearing policies were central to winning that concession, but are turning out to be highly controversial.
Australia argued it was special because its economy depends heavily on the export and use of fossil fuels, such as coal. It does not use nuclear energy. But Australia also claimed it deserved credit for slowing down its rate of land-clearing. About a quarter of the country's greenhouse emissions are caused by land-clearing activities and the burning associated with it. The Australians also wanted credit for planting trees on some of the cleared land. The new forests will absorb carbon dioxide.
Yet the devastation has been vast. According to a recent report by New South Wales's Environment Protection Authority, 9% of the Australian continent was forested when the first Europeans stepped ashore in 1788; only 5% remains forested today. Most of the woodland was in the more fertile coastal regions, such as northern New South Wales, where nearly all the native rainforests have disappeared. In the wheat belt of south-west Western Australia, which makes up most of that state's cultivated land, 93% of pre-European native vegetation has been cut down.
Australia's land-clearing rate in 1997 was two-thirds that of 1990. Much of the reduction reflected the impact of green politics since the 1980s, and restrictions imposed on farmers in some states, such as South Australia and Victoria, where clearing has virtually stopped. Not so in New South Wales, the most populous state, and Queensland, home to about half of Australia's 23m cattle. According to the latest figures, in both these states farmers and developers are still clearing 458,000 hectares (1,800 square miles) a year, which is 97% of Australia's total land-clearance.
So how can Australia stick to its Kyoto undertaking and yet continue to reduce its land clearance? The farmers in Queensland, known as the "deep north", are a truculent lot whose voting power is likely to deter both state and federal governments from imposing new clearing controls. Indeed, the federal minister for primary industries announced after the Kyoto gathering that there were "mitigating factors" against the need for such controls, without saying what they were.
Very little, according to some critics. "Australia committed fraud on the international community at Kyoto," says Clive Hamilton, executive director of the Australia Institute, a Canberra-based environmental-research body. "Australia's greenhouse target there was so generous that we will need to do almost nothing to reduce our energy emissions, and could actually increase the rate of land clearing."
Source: The Economist
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