Australia has emphasised that it will not sign up to a new legally binding climate change target unless the biggest greenhouse gas emitters are included.
In a formal statement at the United Nations climate talks in Durban, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said a second stage of the Kyoto Protocol - the world’s only binding climate pact - would not be environmentally effective if it covered countries responsible for only 15 per cent of global emissions.
His statement came amid confusion over whether the European Union was softening its demand that all countries agree to sign a legal treaty by 2015 in a bid to reach a weak accord with US, China and India.
With less than two days of the talks left,, the EU was trying to keep alive the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 pact that caps emissions from rich countries except the US. China, the US and India want to delay a commitment on binding cuts until after 2015.
Despite this, Mr Combet told Sky News he was confident the talks were making headway.
EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said its demand that countries agree to work on a legally binding pact - to be signed by 2015 and enacted after 2020 - was not ”cut in stone”.
In Canberra, Greens leader Bob Brown said there was no evidence Australia was fighting for a deal that would deliver more ambitious targets in line with those recommended by climate scientists. ”Australia should be committed to the second round of the Kyoto agreement,” he said.
