By Allen Myers
In the week before the opening of the Kyoto conference on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, scientific studies of temperatures around the world appear to show that 1997 will be the hottest year since human beings began keeping temperature records.
Despite this, the Australian government is still going to the conference with the position that Australia should be allowed to increase its greenhouse gas emissions, even as the rest of the world is trying to agree on targets for reduced emissions.
Most Australians disagree with the government's position, according to a poll commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by A.C. Nielsen-McNair over the November 22-23 weekend. The poll of 1000 voting-age residents across the country found that:
- 76% disagree that Australia should be allowed to increase emissions while other countries are decreasing theirs;
- 71% believe that greenhouse gas cuts should be binding for all countries;
- 90% are concerned about the effects of global warming on Australia;
- 67% believe that the government should be doing more about global warming.
The last figure indicates that Prime Minister Howard's "greenhouse package", announced a few days earlier, was seen, correctly, as mainly a tokenistic public relations exercise.
The package involved funds of only $180 million over four years — an almost trivial sum considering the magnitude of the problem.
And, Greens Senator Bob Brown pointed out, the $180 million is only $20 million per year more than the cuts the Howard government has made to greenhouse-related programs since it came to office.
Brown supplied figures showing that the government has cut, over four years, $59 million from the Energy Research and Development Corporation's research into renewable energy and energy efficiency, $15 million from the National Greenhouse Research Program, $11.6 million from the National Energy Efficiency Program and $10 million from the Climate Change Program.
Cutbacks to renewable energy research protect the profits of coal and oil companies by helping to keep renewable energy less competitive in direct cost terms.