By DPA
Sydney : Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd Sunday said signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change would be his very first act if elected to government when Australians go to the polls Nov 24.
Every opinion poll shows Rudd in line to win the 16 extra seats he needs to have a majority in the 150-member parliament.
“The international panel of climate change scientists is sending out a very clear warning to the leaders of this country and of the world to act now on climate change,” Rudd said.
“We have a plan for doing that, to ratify Kyoto — Mr Howard opposes that; to set a carbon target of 60 percent by 2050 — Mr Howard opposes that,” Rudd said referring to Prime Minister John Howard, who has joined the United States in opposing the Kyoto initiative.
Howard, who has yet to settle on a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, has indicated that a re-elected coalition government would adopt a target lower than Labor’s.
“The public should be voting for the party that has the best and most balanced plan to fix it,” Howard said. “The interesting thing about this election campaign and climate change is that the Labor Party has now adopted our plan about the future.”
Labor initially said it was prepared to sign a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, that again set emissions targets for developed countries and none for developing countries.
Pilloried by the Howard government over that position, Rudd changed track and said any new UN-brokered agreement must award targets to developing countries as well.
With just six days to go before the general election, support for Labor is steady at 54 percent with Howard’s conservatives on 46 percent. The opinion poll, published in an Australian newspaper, claimed a maximum margin of sampling error of 2 percent.
Earlier opinion polls have also shown Labor set for a thumping win.
Meanwhile, Greens leader Bob Brown said neither Howard nor Rudd have polices that could avert climate change catastrophe. The Greens said their policy adhered to the recommendations in a report just released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It includes an emissions-reduction target of 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.