On this day, August 17, 2002, the fifteen other members of the Pacific Leaders’ Forum urge Australia (led by John Howard) to sign the Kyoto Protocol
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 372.03 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark says Pacific nations will continue to lobby Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
The final communique of this year’s Pacific Leaders’ Forum urges countries to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia is the only state of the 16-member Forum not to have agreed to the protocol.”
Pacific states urge Australia to sign Kyoto Protocol. 17 August 2002 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific – Text of report by Radio Australia on 17 August
Why this matters.
There’s a certain amount of work Penny Wong is going to have to do, yes?
Btw Kyoto was not going to Save The World – see the Veil of Kyoto.article by Howarth and Foxall.
What happened next?
Australia DID in fact ratify the Kyoto Protocol – once Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister. He then refused to do much of anything about setting Australia a real, ambitious target. And it all went very tits up on the domestic front…