Posted by Julie-Anne Richards

Members of the Australian delegation have told me that they're reading my blog. Hello out there! 

I've neglected to blog for 2 days. Saturday night was the NGO party at this meeting. Its a tradition that the NGO party is a big night, when everyone turns up (although I believe members of the Australian and US delegations have to disavow their government positions). It was a lot of fun, and unfortunately I didn't have my camera to take incriminating photos. Your imagination will have to be your guide :)

Sunday is the official day off the negotiations – but I had 7 hours of CAN meetings, so not exactly a relaxing day off! Still the second week's the important week, so its crucial to be ready!

And yet, still today started with a huge bang! The Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell's grand statement about his mythical “new Kyoto” generated howls of laughter. The rest of the world finds this statement to be high comedy coming from a country that hasn't ratified the Kyoto Protocol and whose emissions are increasing by over 25% (excluding land clearing). The NGOs awarded Australia a Fossil of the Day for this effort. It was a joint award with Canada – as they are similarly behaving badly. Canadian Environment Minister Rona Ambrose actually said that Canada was meeting all of its Kyoto commitments ... just with the exception of the small matter of MEETING THEIR TARGET! Why worry about the small details?

Tomorrow's ECO will have a great piece on it – recommend checking it out at www.climatenetwork.org.

Here's a great quote from Malcolm Farr, of Sydney's Daily Telegraph: “PRIME Minister John Howard will use two meetings this week to push his contention that climate change can be managed by Australia's coal industry.” Hey – after all, the tobacco industry solved the problem of lung cancer effectively, didn't they?

The Australians have been pushing very hard to get Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) or geosequestration, into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM is the key mechanism within the Kyoto Protocol which provides for developing countries to input into reducing global emissions. At the moment its concentrated in fast developing countries (like India and China) and big projects – its not reaching the Least Developed Countries and small scale projects effectively. Including CCS in the CDM will only exacerbate this problem – with mega projects in a few countries taking all the project money available. Its very important that CCS not be allowed into the CDM for at least the first commitment period – as there are plenty of unresolved problems with CCS. Read CANA's CCS page here: www.cana.net.au

I understand that Prime Minister Howard announced an emissions trading taskforce tonight. So, whilst the EU emissions trading scheme is trading over $25 billion a year, Australia is going to talk about it. Hmmm.

Note: the above is the opinion of Julie-Anne Richards, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Climate Action Network.