The Abbott government has been accused of setting impossible requirements for Australia’s participation in any global climate change agreement clinched in Paris next year by insisting it must include legally binding emissions targets.
Experts say the Paris agreement could require countries to enshrine their new post-2020 greenhouse emission reduction targets in domestic law but that any attempt to include those targets in the legally binding international treaty itself would drive away the world’s two biggest emitters – the US and China – and ensure that the process failed.
The foreign minister, Julie Bishop – who has revealed Tony Abbott knocked back her first request to attend the current preparatory meeting in Lima, Peru, and who is now to be “chaperoned” at that meeting by the trade minister, Andrew Robb – has said a Paris agreement must include binding targets. If it did not it would “amount to nothing more than aspirations”, she said.
“It seems like they are trying to set impossible conditions so that they can portray a successful Paris agreement as a failure,” said Frank Jotzo, associate professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School.
“Legally binding instruments can build confidence that countries will act on the commitments they make internationally. However, the legal form of an international agreement does not determine its effectiveness. The most binding treaty will do little to address climate change if some major emitters like the US and China do not participate.”
