By DPA
Sydney : Australia will not take to Bali a 25 to 40 percent emissions reduction target for 2020, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s principal climate change adviser said Monday.
Rudd leaves Tuesday for Indonesia to attend the UN-sponsored conference in Bali, fresh from signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which mandates binding emissions-reduction targets for developed countries.
Economist Ross Garnaut, commissioned by Rudd to write a climate change report by June, said that Australia would not be committing to any target in Bali despite a push for developed nations to set targets for reductions of 25-40 percent by 2020.
“That’s a range, that’s there for consideration, but no one expects this meeting in Bali to reach agreement on anything like that,” Garnaut said. “A new government in Australia recently rejoining the international effort through signing Kyoto will be understood if it says that it is going to take its time.”
Rudd, who defeated John Howard’s conservatives at last month’s elections, has joined European countries in setting a 2050 target of 60-percent reductions but has baulked at fixing an interim goal.