Senate Greensblog

Nuclear does not have the answers we need

Published in The Age 10 March 2010

Nuclear advocates frequently proclaim the need for a public debate about building nuclear power reactors in Australia. Well, last Thursday they got one, staged in front of 1200 people at the Melbourne Town Hall - and they were trounced.

A poll before the debate found an 8 per cent margin in favour of nuclear power. A further poll taken immediately after the debate revealed a margin of 24 per cent against nuclear power - 34 per cent in favour, 58 per cent against.

This 32 per cent turn-around was all the more surprising given that the pro-nuclear debating team included heavy-hitters Dr Ziggy Switkowski and Dr James Hansen, the "godfather" of climate change science and head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Dr Hansen argues that energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are our first-line weapons in the battle against climate change. No arguments there. In the Australian context, we have a growing body of scientific research mapping out sustainable energy scenarios that would allow us to keep the lights on while also sharply reducing greenhouse emissions.

For example, a 2008 report by McKinsey, a firm specialising in global greenhouse policy analysis, finds that with cost-saving energy efficiency measures and a number of other low-cost abatement measures, we could reduce Australia's greenhouse emissions by 35 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030 at no net cost (with further measures identified to reduce emissions by another 25 per cent).

The 35 per cent reduction equates to a reduction of 191 million tonnes of emissions each year. For comparison, if we relied on nuclear power to do the same job, 32 power reactors would be required and the capital cost alone would be $128-192 billion.

Where I differ with Dr Hansen is in his advocacy of nuclear power. Dr Hansen primarily sees nuclear power as a back-up in case renewables and energy efficiency can't deliver the greenhouse emissions reductions that are required. He is primarily interested in supporting research into "fourth generation" nuclear power concepts.

One obvious objection is that fourth generation nuclear power is still decades away. Yet we urgently need to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Another key question is whether the fourth-generation nuclear concepts go some way to resolving the greatest problem with nuclear power - its connection to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Sadly, claims made about the "proliferation resistance" of novel nuclear power concepts do not stand up to scrutiny. Dr Hansen is keen on the "integral fast reactor" concept. However, Dr George Stanford, who worked on an IFR research program in the United States, notes that proliferators "could do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor - operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material".

The second nuclear power concept being promoted by Dr Hansen involves using thorium as the nuclear fuel instead of uranium. But thorium doesn't solve the weapons proliferation problem. Irradiation of thorium in a reactor produces uranium-233, a fissile material that can be used in nuclear weapons - indeed, the US has successfully tested several uranium-233 weapons.

As the only country to have seriously pursued thorium power, India provides one of the few real-world glimpses into the brave new world of fourth generation nuclear technology. India intends to use fast reactors to produce weapons-grade plutonium that will be used to co-fuel thorium reactors. That system is at odds with the rhetoric of "proliferation resistant" fourth-generation technology, and the production and transport of weapon-grade plutonium also makes it much more dangerous than conventional nuclear power. Anyone who has bought into the rhetoric about "proliferation resistant" fourth generation nuclear power might want to see if they can get their money back.

Dr Mark Diesendorf, an academic at the University of NSW and one of the participants in the Melbourne Town Hall debate, notes that: "On top of the perennial challenges of global poverty and injustice, the two biggest threats facing human civilisation in the 21st century are climate change and nuclear war. It would be absurd to respond to one by increasing the risks of the other. Yet that is what nuclear power does."

Increasing the risk of nuclear war brings us back to climate change. Recent scientific research details the climatic impacts of nuclear warfare. The use of 100 weapons in nuclear warfare - just 0.03 per cent of the explosive power of the world's nuclear arsenal - would result directly in catastrophic climate change with many millions of tonnes of black, sooty smoke lofted high into the stratosphere. Needless to say the social and environmental impacts would be horrendous.

Nuclear power reminds me of the old woman who swallowed a fly - a "solution" that only worsens the problems. We need safe, sustainable energy solutions - much can be done with existing technology, and we also need further research and development to extend the capabilities of sustainable energy sources and to bring down costs. Nuclear power would at best be a distraction and a delay on the path to a sustainable future.

Terror white paper: shiny new language, same old laws

...this blog piece first appeared in Crikey 23 Feb 2010

The counter-terrorism white paper issued today is long overdue. Announced by the Prime Minister in December 2008 as "forthcoming", the release has been delayed several times, presumably to give the government enough time to cleanse the document of any real detail and manage the process of strategic leaks that now seem to routinely precede any major announcement.

While offering the usual generic statements of the obvious, the paper foreshadows a welcome shift in discourse. The government makes important acknowledgements on the root causes of terrorism stemming from poverty and injustice, and states that an open democratic society can promote long-term resilience against the kinds of marginalisation and radicalisation that breed terror networks.

Howard-era cries for war on everybody are mercifully silenced; more nuanced language is used to legitimise the retention and quiet expansion of the former Government's extreme counter-terrorism laws and their consequential surveillance and intelligence regimes.

The government is at pains to explain that it does not support the use of torture or other unlawful methods, and sub-headings about "lawful, proportionate and accountable response" emphasise the role of the newly established Independent National Security Legislation Monitor to review our counter-terrorism laws.

The gravity of the task before the monitor makes it all the more important that the Government accepts the Senate's amendments providing for genuine reporting obligations to the Parliament, rather than annual reports laundered through the Prime Minister's office.

The Government won't reveal which countries will be subjected to the blocklist for biometric profiling, but today's borderless world makes the merits of this scheme highly ambiguous -- however headline worthy. It recalls the recent announcement of body scanners in airports -- newsworthy, but divisive and of questionable worth.
The white paper correctly notes that the availability of nuclear and radioactive materials magnifies the terrorist threat, but is silent on Australia's role as one of the world's largest suppliers of the feedstock material.

Having already experienced an exponential growth in budget and personnel, ASIO is even further strengthened through the establishment of the multi-agency co-ordination Counter Terrorism Control Centre. Quite what this new addition to the sprawling acronym soup of security agencies will add to the mix is uncertain, but ASIO's rapid growth and mooted overseas expansion point the way.

Having already experienced an exponential growth in budget and personnel, doubling its staff over five years, ASIO is one of Australia's least accountable agencies. It is impossible for the parliament to know if it is getting value for money and results.

In December 2009, the Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism issued a report expressing concern about international core data protection principles. Specifically the Rapporteur says that countries that lack constitutional or statutory safeguards around information on individuals have been able to radically transform their surveillance powers, in our case, over Australians. Beefing up surveillance through more extensive sharing of the data about travelling Australians means more information is shared about us with countries and private security actors -- identification information, financial data, medical data, prior travel information, frequent-flier information. A data-sharing agreement should extend constitutional or statutory safeguards to protect privacy and the security of that information.

The government acknowledges that "most of the major anti-Western terrorist attacks of recent years, including those with the most direct impact on Australians, were perpetrated by terrorists who had links to, or had trained in, Afghanistan or neighbouring Pakistan". Lowering the death toll of Afghan civilians might reduce our vulnerability. The fact is that the Taliban are not only enduring, the Taliban are growing, issuing three communications in five languages on a daily basis. Meanwhile, there is no "international" co-ordination or common diagnosis by NATO and company.

The Australian Greens are a party founded on democracy and non-violence, and we fundamentally oppose politically motivated violence and the ideologies underpinning terrorist attacks. But with the sluggish and contested process of bringing an Australian Human Rights Act into play, the contest between security and the rights to go about our lives free from unwarranted surveillance and interference from intelligence agencies still looks decidedly asymmetrical.

Learning lessons from the monumental and bloody mistakes of the recent past

In March 2003, Prime Minister John Howard announced combat operations had begun and Australian troops had crossed the border as the Shock and Awe bombardment lit up Baghdad.

The decision had been made - the invasion was already underway as Howard spoke into the TV cameras, informing Australians that we were at war.

In a democratic nation with a bicameral parliament constituted to decide on matters of state, this call was left up to Howard and his Cabinet. Seventeen people.

As Prime Minister John Howard said on that same night, "We are determined to join other countries to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, its chemical and biological weapons, which even in minute quantities are capable of causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale."

Those claims were utterly false, and the PM already had that advice in his pocket. Since then 4693 Coalition service personnel have lost their lives in Iraq, including two Australians. At least 110,000 Iraqi civilians are estimated to have met violent deaths. Iraq now has nearly five million orphaned children.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians across Australia marched against the invasion, and I was one of them. The Prime Minister ignored us and went to war regardless.

While citizens do delegate responsibilities to leaders by electing them, the democratic system includes an ongoing forum for discussion where leaders must provide reasoning and minimal accountability for their decisions: the Parliament.

Howard's was the first government in modern history to go to war without the support of both houses of parliament. This must never happen again. The responsibility of sending Australian men and women into harms way should not happen behind closed doors - it is a call that should be made in the open by elected members and the public they are meant to represent.

That's why I've taken carriage of a Private Senator's Bill designed to amend the Defence Act (1903) to require parliamentary approval to send Australian troops to war.

A decades-old piece of unfinished business, introduced by the Australian Democrats in the 1980s, it has since been taken up by the Australian Greens as a way of giving the people a say in whether we wage war.

A debate is under way in the UK, the very source of our own Westminster system, to transfer the prerogative power to declare war, ratify treaties and appoint judges from the executive to the parliament. Our ally the United States has a similar provision that subjects the decision to go to war to a broader forum - Section 8 of the US Constitution says, "Congress shall have the power to declare War".

This bill would bring Australia into line with other democracies like Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey where troop deployment is set down in constitutional or legislative provisions. Some form of parliamentary approval or consultation is also routinely undertaken in Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway.

Arguments against using our democratic structures on the grave issue of troop deployment include that it would be "impractical", "restrictive" and "inefficient". Such arguments ignore the fact that parliaments make complex and nuanced decisions, rapidly when necessary, and that the bill has been carefully drafted for circumstances when recourse to Parliament might not be possible.

While autocracies or dictatorships may well be more speedy and efficient, they are not legitimate or acceptable forms of government.

The Rudd Government has quietly aligned itself with the Opposition in pre-emptively opposing the bill. The same empty bipartisan consensus saw the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade decide against holding a public hearing into the bill, a standard part of Senate Inquiries into issues of public importance.

So on Friday 12 February I took the unusual step of convening a hearing in Parliament House, with or without the major parties. The evidence we took from an impressive witness line-up will be submitted to the committee in the form of a minority report, and placed in the public domain to further the debate.

People like Brigadier Adrian D'Hage, who is one of our most distinguished former soldiers, Professor Colin Warbrick, who assisted the UK parliamentary committee inquiry, Dr Sue Wareham from the Medical Association for Prevention of War, Neil James of the Australian Defence Association, Paul Barratt, a former Defence Secretary, and Professor Helen Ware, an author, academic and former Australian High Commissioner converged on the capital to debate the pros and cons.

I should emphasise I didn't expect all these witnesses to support the proposal (it wouldn't have made for a very interesting hearing if they did) - but each of them expressed a willingness to explore the issues and brought their expertise to bear.

We need to learn lessons from the monumental and bloody mistakes of the recent past. History, in this instance, must not be allowed to repeat.

Senator Scott Ludlum

Bob's news from Greens around the globe

Some news coming across my desk about Greens colleagues around the world that I thought you may be interested in….cheers, Bob
The German Greens turned 30 years old last week – they now have 68 MPs in the Bundestag! - Story
The French Greens were featured in Newsweek in late December, as France's Constitutional Court threw out Sarkozy's carbon tax. Newsweek speculates that the ruling will lift the Greens vote further in elections in March.
Greens in the Philippines are excited this week that for the first time one of the 10 official Presidential candidates for the Philippines will be a Green! The candidate Nicanor Perlas approached us to help his appeal against the Commission on Elections who had deemed him as a nuisance candidate. I wrote a letter to the Commissioners along with others, and was thrilled that Perlas was reinstated – only 2 out the 100 people that appealed to the Commission were reinstated as official candidates for the 2010 election - Story
On 9 January the Green Party in Portugal voted with the Government to approve plans to legalise gay marriage. A Green party amendment to proposal to allow gay couples to adopt children was however rejected – Story
Greens in Ireland have been busy since they recently renegotiated their alliance for Government in October 2009 – and I recently sent my congratulations to a new Greens Senator who started in December, the former mayor of Galway Niall Ó Brolcháin.

Deadlock on climate action helps no-one

On December 2 last year, after being blind-sided by the unexpected elevation of Tony Abbott to the Liberal Party leadership, the Rudd government made a hasty announcement that they may well come to regret - that they would bring back their twice-defeated emissions trading bill a third time as soon as Parliament resumed in February.

With the date swiftly approaching, blind Freddy could tell you that the opposition will not support the bills and the government is still making no attempt to negotiate amendments with the cross-bench. The whole exercise is looking like a fruitless, time-wasting political stunt.

This deadlock helps no-one. The community is denied action on the climate crisis, the business community is denied the investment certainty they crave, the government looks increasingly impotent and the opposition looks like spoilers.

There is a solution to this deadlock - one that Professor Garnaut suggested a year ago in his final report, fully expecting the political difficulties involved in legislating for a full trading scheme. The government's stonewalling has got to stop and we should pass an interim measure that, for two years, would use the CPRS reporting architecture with a fixed $20 carbon price.

We Greens are now proposing that we adopt the Garnaut suggestion and get Australia moving with this interim carbon pricing scheme. We can then, over the coming two years, discuss the longer term solutions Australia will need, secure in the knowledge that a carbon price is already in place, helping to unleash innovative and job creating climate solutions. [Read the detail here.]

This option has many benefits. Although there would be no trading in the interim period, the use of the CPRS reporting structures means that, should we reach agreement in the next two years on an effective emissions trading scheme, there would be a smooth transition into that environment for business. The mostly uncontentious parts of the legislation would be passed, with the deeply problematic questions such as targets, international trading and permit allocation mechanisms set aside for further debate. Business would get certainty from the knowledge that, if no agreement is reached, the fixed price would continue and slowly rise over time.

The absence of trading means that there can be no use of international offsets in the scheme. This tremendously increases the environmental integrity of the scheme - since the government has steadfastly refused to accept the Greens' amendment to cap the use of international permits or even require them to be gold standard accredited, seemingly keen for dodgy offsets to flood the Australian market. It also ensures that all emissions reductions driven by the carbon price happen at home, truly beginning the transformation of Australia's economy. That stands in stark contrast to the CPRS as drafted, which would effectively guarantee a future for polluting industries here at home as long as limitless supplies of cheap offsets are available from offshore.

The Greens' proposal would allocate the same proportion of revenue to householders as under the CPRS, leaving no low- or middle-income earner out of pocket. Ideally, as we have long argued, some of the $5 billion this scheme would direct to householders would be invested in making their homes more energy efficient, saving them money while reducing emissions, instead of being pumped straight into wallets across the country.

Our proposed reduction of industry support to Professor Garnaut's recommended levels would put the scheme well into the black - $3 billion in surplus over two years, in contrast to the almost $1 billion deficit the CPRS would accrue over that time. This would leave room for a substantial investment in R&D, renewable energy, energy efficiency and public transport, using the scheme's revenue to support its aims instead of undermining them as the CPRS's back-to-front compensation structures would do.

We are under no illusions that this solution is perfect. It is clearly a third or fourth best solution. But, unlike the CPRS, there is no way it can hold back climate action. Where the CPRS is designed to make it as difficult and expensive as possible to strengthen once it is passed, this proposal is designed to be strengthened.

Mr Rudd has no reason to bring the CPRS bills back next month. He has his double dissolution election trigger and he is making no serious attempt to actually pass the legislation. This futile political exercise can get him nowhere.

He would be wise to embrace this proposal and work with the Greens to secure the two extra votes we would need to pass this into law and get Australia moving towards a zero carbon future.

Turning a blind eye to China

He was a mentally unstable father of five living on the streets of Poland when he was unwittingly lured to smuggle 4kg of heroin into China, say the relatives of Briton Akmal Shaikh, who was executed by lethal injection at the end of 2009.

Shaikh had travelled to Urumqi in 2007 on the promise that he would be made into a pop star with his song Come Little Rabbit, which he imagined could bring about world peace.

After a half hour trial in 2008 he was convicted of drug smuggling and handed the mandatory sentence of death.

Despite the pleas of Shaikh's family, the British Government and humanitarian organisations that Shaikh's bipolar disorder be seen as diminishing his responsibility for the crime, the 53-year-old was the first European to be executed in China in half a century.

His daughter, Leilla Horsnell, spoke of her shock at the news and said, "I struggle to understand how this is justice."

That's the problem, it's not justice, and it's yet another example of the cavalier disregard the Chinese regime has for human rights.

Shaikh's case is merely one example and it's because he was from north London that the pleas for clemency and news of his death have created global headlines, but he is one of many people who will be executed this year in a country that has the distinction of killing more people in the name of justice than any other. Amnesty International has estimated that at least 1,718 people were executed in China in 2008. With the figure a state secret this is a minimum estimate - the real number is undoubtedly higher and may be more 4,000.

In this part of the world, despite a multitude of Australian corporations enriching themselves in the growing economic behemoth of China, there has been a conspicuous absence of condemnation. In the interests of their profit margins, our companies are turning a blind eye to the atrocities being committed by their trading partner, and frankly the Australian public should be able to expect more.

Even the American search engine Google, which had steadfastly dealt with China despite condemnation, is taking a stand for human rights, with it's announcement on Tuesday that it will stop censoring its results on Google.cn. The move follows cyber-attacks on its system aimed at identifying human rights activists and could mean the end of the company's presence in the massive market.

Just as corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders, they should also have a moral obligation to humanity to speak out in defence of human rights.

If Australian corporations such as Woodside, BHP Billiton, Cadbury, Telstra, Dymocks, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Qantas are willing to go into China to make big bucks out of the developing economy, they should be expected to give back to that country, not only in monetary terms but also in terms of the development of governance respecting more civilised behaviour.

Is it civilised to put a mentally ill man to death? Is it civilised to cruelly suppress Falun Gong practitioners or pro-democracy advocates? Is it civilised that 100,000 Tibetans live in exile - including in Australia - and they cannot return to their homeland? Is it civilised to crush freedom of speech? Is it civilised for a nation to treat global conventions with contempt, including those relating to the environment and civil and human rights?

With China our major two-way trading partner thanks to total imports and exports of $76,356 million a year, the Australian Greens are calling on the corporate sector to speak up. As far as we're concerned, silence is consent.
Labor and Liberal politicians are too weak when it comes to dealing with China. It is the Greens who lead the charge.

Sure, the Rudd Government has said a lot about its support of human rights.

In his much-lauded speech in Mandarin to Peking University in April 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: "There are still many problems in China. Problems of poverty, problems of uneven development, problems of pollution. Problems of broader human rights."

While in June last year, on the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Prime Minister said in the House of Representatives that: "It remains the Australian Government's view that it is in our national interest to further develop a broad and substantive relationship with China, and within the relationship the question of human rights is an important dimension. Australia continues to raise our concerns about human rights with China. I have raised these matters in the past with Chinese leaders and I will do so in the future. The government believes that continued engagement with China is the best way to support improvement in human rights in that country."

It's all very pretty in principle, but in practice this Government, like the last, has been a dreadfully weak handmaiden to the Chinese dictatorship. Rudd even refused to meet with the Dalai Lama during his visit to Australia in late 2009, presumably terrified of getting China offside.

The visit recently to Australia of Rebiya Kadeer highlighted the lengths the Chinese Government will go to in order to reach into our democracy to silence dissenting voices, and even then Australian governments and corporations were not prepared to call for human rights and democratic values in China.

So it's time to put money where the government's mouth is. Australia needs to place human rights on the table in its protracted negotiations with China on a free trade agreement. Human rights obligations for governments and corporations alike should be a key plank to any agreement.

We care about the conduct of our corporations at home - such as when it comes to the payments of massive bonuses to directors or workplace standards - so we certainly should care about their behaviour once business has moved overseas, which is why their participation in a conspiracy of silence needs to end.

With the stakes so high, businesses with trade ties in China need to show leadership. To that end, we Greens believe that companies should be compelled to behave in accordance with our community's values, which is why we propose the strengthening of laws requiring Australian corporations operating overseas to comply with Australian and international laws including those relating to human rights, environmental protection and labour laws.

We advocate the establishment of an independent Corporate Responsibility Index, ranking the financial, social and environmental performance of businesses and corporations operating here or overseas.

We believe publicly-listed companies and government departments should be required to audit and report annually on their performance against economic, environmental and social criteria.

We also propose legislation to allow those people who have been detrimentally affected by the operations of Australian corporations overseas to sue the corporations in Australia.

It appears that legally binding obligations are the only way to get Australian corporations to take proactive steps towards the promotion of human rights.

Regarding the Australian corporations' own behaviour overseas, enforcement agencies need to be staffed at realistic levels, fines should be set high enough to deter corporations from committing crimes, and directors and managers should be subject to strengthened liability.

More so, corporations that flagrantly and persistently violate human rights should be delisted or at least be barred from government contracts.

As it is, though, Australian companies are keeping quiet about the human rights abuses going on in China in order to maximise profits, and Akmal Shaikh's body lies in an unmarked grave near the Xishan Detention Centre where he was put to death. China doesn't return the bodies of those it executes to their families.

This is the text of an opinion piece that was published in The Canberra Times on January 14, 2010 

Ask your questions on emissions trading

If you're not entirely sure of what the Greens stand for on emissions trading, we have a new detailed feature piece on our website here.

It sets out clearly what we want to see in an emissions trading scheme, how we have attempted over many months to negotiate with the government around their CPRS only to be rebuffed every time, and exactly why we cannot support the CPRS in its current form.

Undoubtedly, many of you will have more questions. This blog post is to give you space to ask those questions which we may not have answered effectively in the feature. We will do our best to answer as many of them as we can as effectively as we can.

Ask away!

Racism does exist in Australia

This week has seen tensions between Australia and India escalate, following yet another attack on an international student. Indian authorities have issued a travel warning about increased violence in Melbourne. The Australian Government is in damage control.

While police investigations into the fatal attack of accounting graduate Nitin Garg in Melbourne and the discovery of the body of an unidentified Indian student in NSW are ongoing, the motives behind these attacks remain unclear.

What is certain however is that there is growing disquiet about the way our international guests have been treated. Yet, our Deputy PM, and the acting Premier of Victoria have been quick to dismiss the possibility that racism may have been a factor in why these young people were targeted, attacked and killed.

While it's too soon to determine exactly what happened, to simply rule out the possibility that racism was involved is neither good leadership nor smart diplomacy in an environment of increased violence.

The Australian Government's indignant dismissal of the suggestion that racism exists in Australia, can only be seen as inflammatory in India, where emotions are still running high. And for those in Australia who have been on the receiving end of racial intolerance and abuse, it must simply be ignorant and insulting.

The state and federal Government's parroting of PR-lines on these attacks has increased the perception of government indifference. The response to the attack on Shravan Kumar last May, the young Indian student who was attacked with a screw-driver through his skull, while strongly condemned by politicians and Government officials, is a case in point.

If Government officials are to be believed, Mr Kumar was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The attack was "opportunistic" and it was not Mr Kumar's race that made him vulnerable, but rather the fact that he inadvertently walked into harm's way.

As the Senator responsible for establishing the Senate Inquiry in the safety and welfare of international students last year, I have spoken to many of these students about their experiences here in Australia. Most of them are extremely positive, but some have told me that after finding themselves victims of physical abuse they had been told by authorities to not carry iPods with them and to avoid speaking in their own language on public transport. What the?

Since when was it the victims fault that they were attacked by 'opportunists'? Since when do we say that victims of violent assault and fatal attacks were simply 'in the wrong place at the wrong time', or carrying one too many iPods?

Can we honestly say that racism does not exist in Australia? You only need to spend an afternoon listening to talk back radio to understand what I'm getting at.

Not everyone holds intolerant views of people from other cultural backgrounds or race, and out of those who do, very few would act on it. But nonetheless, some people are just bigots. It's true. Narrow-mindedness and racism do exist in Australia, and it's wrong.

We know this racist sentiment is unfounded and stems from an irrational fear of the unknown. But we can't address this, if we pretend it doesn't exist.

Some people are racists and politicians are kidding themselves if they think that by denying this, these people will somehow go away, or no one else will notice them. Every country has its fair share of morons; people who commit acts of violence against others simply because of the colour of their skin, their gender or their sexuality. Sadly, Australia is no exception.

Only by exposing and repudiating racism wherever it exists, are we truly able to move forward as a harmonious and unified community. Ignorant views fester, when we turn a blind eye. Racist ideas only flourish in the shadows, when they are not held up to the light of public scrutiny.

We need leaders to be honest enough to address the issue directly rather than sweep it under carpet, doing so under the guise of the 'new political correctness' that says we can't mention racism because it will whip up a Pauline Hanson style backlash. Yes, racism does exist in Australia and it is wrong. Australia is not immune from morons.

Unfortunately, if you identify racist attitudes in Australia you are all too often accused of being unpatriotic. I love my country and it is for this reason I know we can and must do better. Isn't the quest to be the best country we can be, at the heart of patriotism?

Surely, our political leaders should be mature enough to call a spade a spade and start challenging the views that should hold no place in a modern and tolerant democracy like ours. Only if we do this, can we rightfully market Australia as a prime destination for international students and visitors.

-  Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens Education Spokesperson and Senator for South Australia

 This piece was first published on ABC Online's Unleashed - http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2787261.htm 

Copenhagen raises the stakes - time for civil society to hold our leaders to account

So, at last world leaders have agreed on something. They have agreed, essentially, that they lack the will to really do what it takes to prevent climate crisis.

They can all articulate the challenge that we face. They can all stand up and tell a room what they are doing. But almost no leader of a country of any size, with the brave exception of Brazil's Lula, is willing to stand up and offer to do more than they see as the absolute minimum they think they can get away with.

The superficial last-minute statement agreed late in the night gives us no substantive progress on any of the critical issues. It takes us no further, really, than the statements out of the G8 and G29 in recent months.

What it does do, in the context of the warnings from the UNFCCC and others, is highlight how weak the promises of action from the developed world really are. The targets on the table simply cannot deliver the 2C goal.

Civil society has a big task ahead. Having demonstrated its power and its momentum in the last week, civil society must mobilise to drive our leaders towards meaningful emissions targets and financing commitments if a substantive deal is to be reached in the next 12 months.

The near collapse of these talks, of course, is very largely due to the complete failure of developed world leaders from Kevin Rudd to Barack Obama to understand the depth of global commitment to real action on the climate crisis. They completely misread the commitment of the developing world to the Kyoto Protocol structures and to the serious emissions reduction targets needed to deliver a safe climate.

The rich world demanded compromises from the developing world but offered none itself.

The developing world was never going to be willing to be taken for a ride at Copenhagen. Thiws has been obvious for at least 12 months. But leaders paid no attention to repeated warnings. I made the point last December, when the Rudd Government released its emissions trading white paper, that the woeful 5-15% cuts would undermine global action and that is exactly what has come to pass.

Kevin Rudd should be held personally responsible, as he said he would be, not only for refusing to do what everyone knows is necessary, but also for trying to bully those who wanted real deal into accepting his greenwash.

The critical issues here were always going to be the adequacy of targets and financing put on the table by the developed world, and we needed to see both lifted dramatically if any progress was to be made here.

Instead, the developed world used the conference to undermine their commitments even further through land use change loopholes and moves to undermine the Kyoto framework.

Perhaps the great disappointment of last night was President Obama's speech - although given the USA's history in these talks, it should have been no surprise to anyone. Nevertheless, the world waited for Obama with baited breath, expecting him to deliver a circuit-breaker. Instead he delivered a none-too-subtle attack on China which reportedly made negotiations even more difficult.

We must not forget that the underlying tension here was caused by the continued refusal of the USA to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. If the US joined Kyoto, the two-track process which led to this procedural road-smash would never have been necessary.

There is only one way to rescue this process before next year's conferences in Bonn and Mexico City. And that is for countries like Australia to recognise that their targets do not even match the 2C goal, let alone the stronger 1.5C agreement proposed by the most vulnerable countries in the world, and to lift their sights to what is necessary.

Copenhagen has raised the stakes hugely. It is now up to civil society to hold our leaders to account and ensure that the act at least according to what they say, and preferably even stronger.

UNFCCC exposes Rudd's empty rhetoric

For all those who have been convinced by Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Wong's rhetoric that they are fighting for a 450ppm and 2C agreement at Copenhagen, and believe that that is a good start, a leak from the UN Secretariat over here exposes that claim for the fraud it is.

The leak, which can be downloaded here, concludes that, even with the highest pledges on the table from developed and developing countries, the world would be on a trajectory "that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550 ppm with the related temperature rise around 3C". That trajectory gives the planet essentially no real chance of avoiding the tipping points which would trigger runaway heating and climate catastrophe.

Perhaps now more people in the developed world will understand why the developing world is unprepared to be bullied by countries like Australia into signing their lives away - literally.

Why should poorer nations, who are historically far less responsible for climate change, be required to act before those who caused the problem? China must of course be brought to the table, but they are quite justified in arguing that they have already moved further than they need to without developed nations taking on their fair burden.

Why should the Chinese leaders not be pessimistic developed world leaders have point blank refused to lift their targets to the ambition that the science requires? I find it fascinating that Chinese leaders are criticised for their honesty when they tell the Copenhagen conference that they do not expect an agreement to be reached this week, but Kevin Rudd's dishonesty in his speech to the plenary goes unremarked.

Mr Rudd's speech this morning my time was, in Shakespeare's words, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". I guess that's what we today might call "all spin and no substance".

But, apart from the empty language on targets, the key impact of Mr Rudd's speech will be his reference to Tuvalu and Kiribati in making the case for action. The delegates from these countries will not be impressed that Mr Rudd used them as an example of climate crisis in the conference room when he and his staff have been bullying them outside the room.

One positive note coming from the last day is that it is understood that Russia have abandoned the idea of banking the gigatonnes of "hot air" they still have available. Because Russia was given a target at Kyoto that was far higher than they needed, they were able to sell millions of international emissions permits that did not represent any emissions reductions at all - a phenomenon that became known as "hot air". Russia had been pushing to have that rort rolled over into the coming agreement, a decision that would have completely neutralised the woefully weak commitments that are on the table. It would be tremendously positive if Russia had agreed not to push that claim any further.

Strong bullying the vulnerable is not the way to a positive outcome in Copenhagen

As the snow falls here in Copenhagen, so do the hopes of millions around the world.

We appear to be reaching a low point in the COP. As world leaders arrive and ministerial meetings start, the texts they are working on are a complete mess, filled with [brackets] and completely unresolved on key issues of targets and financing, let alone how to bring together the two streams in the process.

But any faith in leaders, that they will somehow rescue a positive conclusion from this mess, is misplaced. A positive outcome requires a positive attitude towards negotiation. All we have seen so far is a tragic return to the old order of the strong bullying the weak. We are seeing arm twisting of small island states by Kevin Rudd and Gordon Brown. Mr Rudd is particularly pressuring the Maldives and Kiribati, I am told, attempting to buy them off with promises of direct funding. French Guyana is already said to be weakening under similar pressure from Mr Sarkozy.

This tactic of picking off individual countries, buying them off with individually tailored offers, has a long history in these kinds of negotiations. It worked brilliantly at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, and it has worked for Japan for years in the International Whaling Commission.

Make no mistake. That is what is going on here.

This is not a question of the rich world trying to salvage something that is "better than nothing". It is a clear attempt to buy off critics so they can successfully hoodwink their domestic constituents into believing they have the problem in hand.

Each time you hear Prime Minister Rudd, President Obama or Chancellor Merkel talk about their plans to limit warming to 2C with a 450 ppm target, remember that the proposals they have on the table will breach 650 ppm and push the world to a catastrophic 4C warming or more. One of the many highly credible analyses that reaches this conclusion is here.

Penny Wong's speech to the plenary on behalf of the Umbrella Group (nations including Australia, the USA, Canada, Japan and New Zealand) was received by commentators around the world as underwhelming and hypocritical. Her promise of 50% global emissions cuts by 2050 is well understood to be completely at odds with science and thus unacceptable. Once again, the Umbrella Group, with Australia at the chair, is undermining the potential for a reasonable global outcome.

The NGO lock out for the final days of the conference is yet another example of the bullying of the powerless fighters for change by the powerful proponents of the status quo.

These few days will go down in history - a history that is yet to be written. Each of us has to make a decision - which side of history do we want to be on?

The Nuclear Debate

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Nuclear power was the hot topic recently when two Senators for Western Australia – Mathias Cormann from the Liberal Party and Scott Ludlam from the Australian Greens – led a public debate at Perth Town Hall.

Thursday 3rd December saw three speakers on either team, including Senator Cormann, Dr Ian Duncan and Professor Manfred Lenzen on the pro-nuclear side and Senator Ludlam, Dr Irene Kirczenow and Mr Dave Sweeney on the anti-nuclear side, moderated by the ABC’s Chief Political Reporter Peter Kennedy.

You can now listen to the complete debate in high definition on our website.

“The phrase ‘let’s at least have the debate about nuclear power’ must be one of the most over-used in politics,” Senator Ludlam said.
“We've actually had the debate over and over again and the ‘no’ case has strengthened over time.

“However, I welcome the opportunity to present new information which will give pro-nuclear advocates something serious to think about.”

2+2=5? Copenhagen targets add up to 750 ppm

Here is the critical point to remember if a compromise agreement is somehow salvaged by the end of this week: the emission reduction commitments currently on the table add up to global atmospheric carbon concentrations of approximately 750 ppm. That means 4C average global temperature rise by the end of the century, agricultural wipeout, mass extinctions and almost certain runaway heating of the planet.

If Copenhagen produces another political statement that claims to be aimed at limiting warming to 2C and carbon concentrations of 450 ppm, citizens around the world should be in no doubt that they are being lied to by their leaders. This is a point that G77 representative, Lumumba Di Aping, has made overnight, telling ABC that "The message Kevin Rudd is giving to his people, his citizens, is a fabrication, it's fiction."

It is very telling, and deeply troubling, that the 30-45% emissions target range for developed countries that had been in the draft KP text yesterday has now been removed and replaced with an X. It seems negotiators would prefer to remove targets from the agreement than lift them to where they actually need to be.

There is a genuine feeling of barely contained panic around the Bella Centre because quite a few of the texts are just not in a state where ministers can deal with them - they are full of brackets and X's and uncertainties. The LULUCF text in particular is such a shambles that it cannot be given to ministers to knock into anything decent. This has meant that ministerial meetings are already starting simultaneous with the drafting meetings which are supposed to feed into the ministerials! It makes no logistical sense and is a recipe for more confusion, more breakdown in trust, and worse outcomes, if any can indeed be reached.

If you recall, early on in the conference I noted the Australian Youth Climate Coalition delegates are wearing t-shirts which say "don't [bracket] our future". Tragically for all of us, the text we have now is so bracketed that that is precisely what world leaders are doing - bracketing our future.

It is no use Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd lamenting that the text isn't good enough to achieve the 2C goal. The lack of ambition shown by Australia and other developed countries in their targets is the major contributing factor. In recent months, many developing countries, including China and Brazil, have put targets on table in good faith, expecting that their move would lead to the developed countries making the next move in this diplomatic chess game and lifting their targets.

Nothing has been done, with the honourable exceptions of the UK and Norway.

The question now is, will world leaders arriving here prefer to have egg on their faces with a failed agreement, or will they prefer to lie to their people and claim that their 750 ppm targets add up to a 2C goal? Or will they finally do what it takes?

Great recipe doing the rounds in Copenhagen

This great recipe is doing the rounds on postcards in Copenhagen:

Recipe for climate catastrophe

A simple recipe that requires very little effort and almost no clean up

1. Start with a small amount of emissions reduction ambition from developed countries.
2. Dilute with tons of REDD offsets, mix thoroughly in carbon markets.
3. Add wildly generous amounts of REDD+ offsets.
4. Stir until ambition disappears.
5. Sprinkle with LULUCF credits and creative accounting as needed.
6. Bake Earth at well beyond 2C mean temperature rise for the foreseeable future.

Serves billions of vulnerable people.

Where are we up to with draft texts in Copenhagen?

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As we head into the final frantic days of Copenhagen, all the work has boiled down to draft negotiating texts for the two streams of negotiations - the Kyoto stream and the non-Kyoto stream (known as KP and LCA, or long-term cooperative action). The two streams were separated at the Montreal meeting, after the Kyoto Protocol came into force, as a way of keeping non-Kyoto countries in the tent, but, if there is to be agreement here, the streams must now be brought together in a way which will satisfy the competing interests of all the countries and negotiating blocs involved.

A thumbnail sketch would show the world divided into three general blocs with broadly aligned positions:
• Rich countries, including Australia, who effectively want to end the Kyoto Protocol - they will not sign a binding agreement here unless China and other large developing nations take on binding targets, an attitude seen by those latter as a breach of the fundamental principles of the Kyoto Protocol;
• The large developing nations such as China who want to retain the Kyoto Protocol and who will not take on binding targets unless the rich nations accept deep cuts targets first - along the lines of 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 - and agree to substantial financing packages; and
• The poorest developing nations, including sub-Saharan Africa and the small island states, who are calling for the retention of the Kyoto Protocol and an additional legally binding protocol to include commitments from China, India etc. They want both of the other groups to get serious and take on the kind of targets that are necessary for their survival.

It is feasible that we could see a political agreement here between the rich nations and the large developing countries, but such an agreement would be essentially worthless as it could be no more than a rubber-stamping of the inadequate offers currently on the table - offers that have been calculated as leading to carbon concentrations in the atmosphere in the order of 750ppm, a recipe for climate chaos with 4C warming this century. Not only would the agreement be worthless, but it would also be bankrupt from the start, as the poorest nations will simply not sign it.

The only way imaginable to achieve an agreement that brings all parties together is for rich countries like Australia to finally bite the bullet and take on the kind of targets that the science requires. Once we do so, China has indicated that it will also move to accept binding targets, albeit with different commitments. That may not be enough to put the world on track to a 350ppm safe climate outcome, but it will put us within cooee of it and, thus, will satisfy the least developed countries. The world could get moving.

Whilst the draft texts that are currently on offer are better than many had expected, they do not achieve any of this. Before looking in detail at these texts, it must be said that the tremendous effort made by Tuvalu in presenting its draft text has had a huge impact on the conference, ensuring that the level of ambition on targets, financing and commitment that Tuvalu set out is now part of the mainstream discussion instead of at the sidelines. The final text will have to move far closer to Tuvalu's position if it is to be agreed.

The LCA draft text has been welcomed in general terms by developing countries but been criticised by Kyoto Parties and the USA. Critically, the draft contains reference both to the 2C objective and the 1.5C objective raised by Tuvalu, AOSIS and African nations. It includes bracketed targets [options inserted for discussion but not finalised] for developed nations from 25% all the way up to 45% by 2020, all on the vital 1990 baseline. [It should be noted here that the lowest option is slightly above Kevin Rudd's highest offer of 24% below 1990 levels by 2020]. It would also require those targets to be met primarily through domestic efforts, rather than the exported emissions reduction plans embodied by the Rudd Government's CPRS, for example.

The text sets out that developing country emissions reductions, to be supported by new and additional financing (over and above existing overseas development aid) from developed countries, would be subject to measurement, reporting and verification.

On the negative side, the long term targets in the LCA text are aspirational only, there is no set year for emissions to peak, no timetable for the agreement to be made legally binding, and there would be no opportunity for review of the agreement until 2015. The IPCC's 5th Assessment report is mentioned in that context, although it would only be there to inform the review, not to act as its basis.

Australia and the EU have criticised this text as not giving certainty for limiting warming to 2C, since it would not bind large developing nations to given emissions trajectories. This criticism is absolutely true, but it is also dripping with hypocrisy in that the targets both Australia and the EU have on the table are far too weak to achieve a 2C limit, and it is in no small part those weak targets which are preventing certainty being achieved.

The small island states have also highlighted the importance of achieving a legally binding outcome for developed and developing countries, but developing nations as a group are strongly behind the ongoing two track approach of the Kyoto Protocol, binding developed countries but not developing countries

The precedence given to the LCA stream over the Kyoto Protocol stream led to the walk out of the developing countries in the last 12 hours. They see it as a stitch up by rich nations to get a 'political' deal at the expense of the Kyoto Protocol.

The KP working group text, interestingly, contains even stronger targets than the LCA - aggregate emissions reductions from developed countries of 30-45% below 1990 by 2020. It is just as well the CPRS was rejected, or Australia would simply be unable to legitimately take part in this discussion, having ruled out anything above 24% cuts.

Other positive aspects of the KP text include the option of discounting credits earned from international trade through the CDM, or clean development mechanism. That would encourage more emissions reductions to be met domestically. There are also good proposals for adaptation funding.

However, there are very significant negatives in the potential inclusion of nuclear power and carbon capture and storage from coal in the CDM as well as the very dodgy deals on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) that Australian negotiators are up to their necks in. In particular, Australia is fighting for the abandonment of the 1990 baseline, wanting countries to be able to set their own baseline based on business-as-usual. That is a recipe for accounting rorts on a massive scale, allowing countries to ‘meet' stringent emissions reduction targets simply with the stroke of a pen. This has been strongly criticised by developing countries including PNG, who told the conference that, of all the options that had been discussed, only the most fraudulent option remains on the table. PNG, however, is playing a destructive role in the REDD negotiations (effectively the LCA parallel to the LULUCF in the KP stream) ,wanting text that includes conserving forests, protecting indigenous rights and improving forest governance relegated to non legally binding status so that it retains the option of logging forests if there is not enough money from developed countries on the table to conserve them.

Although inching progress is being made, the UN and world leaders will have trouble selling a political outcome that declares some kind of success. It is clear that, after Tuvalu's intercession last week, no outcome can be seen as a real success unless it matches that high level of ambition. There is a long way to go before we reach that point, and it is hard to see it happening in the next three days.

Monday in Copenhagen at 2.45pm.

Crisis in Copenhagen: Climate Talks Suspended

Tensions are rising as developing countries again walked out of the talks because there is no progress on the Kyoto Protocol discussions. Instead priority is being given to the Long term Co-operative Action track (known as LCA). Developing countries want the Kyoto Protocol to continue and they see the actions of the EU, USA and Australia in demanding simultaneous action from developing countries, as a move to dump the Kyoto Protocol. By prioritising the LCA track the President is seen as favouring the powerful developed countries. This is a very bad look for the Danish government and seriously undermines any likelihood of a "political" outcome, let alone a legally binding one.

Australia‘s Reputation at stake on land use

Talks in Copenhagen are going backwards on protection of forests and accounting from emissions from land use. It seems that negotiations at the level of officials are stalled and everything depends on the Ministers arriving this week.

Minister Wong and Prime Minister Rudd must commit to ending the cheating and creation of loop holes in the Land Use Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) negotiations and commit to full carbon accounting for the third commitment period. For the second commitment period being decided here, Australia must commit to accounting for all land use activities using spatially explicit data.

The technology exists as Australia has been using it to account for deforestation for over a decade. There is no reason to continue to use low level default settings and dubious statistics collected by state agencies, to transform what is a net emitter into a net sequestration or removal. By using low level data collection and stats the logging industry can masquerade as net positive when in reality it is a net emitter. This cheating of the atmosphere must stop.

REDD

In the negotiations on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) you would think a key priority would be the protection of forests since deforestation contributes 20% of emissions globally. But tragically there is no real leader amongst negotiating countries, and environment groups on the outside are struggling to keep any language to do with forest conservation or protection in the legally binding part of the negotiating text.

Equally important is to ensure that there are safeguards concerning the livelihoods of indigenous people who rely on forests and who have protected forests for millenia. Another sticking point is forest governance. Developing countries must improve governance to ensure that finance for forest conservation actually goes to the communities living in or near the forests and is not diverted through corruption.

Countries like Papua New Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have succeeded in removing this language from the legally binding part of the text because developed countries have not put enough money on the table to compensate these countries for loss of logging revenue and for ongoing stewardship of the forests.

Developed countries must make funding commitments clear for REDD so as developing countries sign on. Developing countries must be assured that the forest is worth more standing than logged. $4 billion will not do it. What is Australia's finance commitment under REDD? What is the colour of our money?

Index of Climate Change Performance

An Index of Climate Change Performance by German Watch and Climate Action Network Europe ranks Australia at the bottom of the heap in Very Poor category along with NZ, USA ,Canada and China.

Civil society speaks, and then is shut out

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After days of no progress at the Bella Centre it was exciting and inspiring to be part of a crowd of 100,000 people rallying for a "real deal" in Copenhagen.

The Greens from all over the world had been told to go to a marshalling point outside the Danish Parliament at 12:30 pm with the march scheduled to start at 2pm. When we arrived, a sea of people, banners, flags, bicycles, rugged up children, prams, Chinese dragons, polar bears and giant snowmen were all assembled in front of the Parliament making it initially difficult to find Die Grunen (German Greens), Ecolo and other international Green party flags. The temperature was freezing, despite a brief appearance from the sunshine, and a trolley powered by a bicycle providing free hot chocolate to the crowd was very welcome.

Placards captured the mood and sentiment of the crowd: "Nature doesn't compromise", "there is no planet B", "blah blah blah action now", "change politics not the climate" and "our planet has a fever". Whilst there were a large number of arrests, the rally was overwhelmingly peaceful.

Let's hope that this amazing outpouring from civil society all around the world, including the thousands who marched in Australia, will put some backbone into the political leaders arriving in Copenhagen this week to do what is necessary for a safe climate. I hope Kevin Rudd takes note and lifts Australia's ambition above his unacceptable 5 - 25% emission target range.

But, after this outpouring of public sentiment, public involvement will be restricted in the Bella Centre this coming week. The numbers allowed into the conference have been limited to 15,000 for security reasons, despite 34,000 people from all over the world having registered to attend. This means over half the people who have travelled from around the globe and committed to being part of this event will be shut out. Access to the conference centre - the only real place where NGOs and other civil society representatives can actually speak to delegates - will be granted through a small number of cards given to each organisation accrediting people. This is likely to lead to increased anger and frustration as those excluded are disproportionately the ones who had fundraised and scrimped and saved to be in Copenhagen because they have such a large stake in the outcome.

Of course, Australia's over 100 official delegates won't be the ones forced to wait out in the cold.

Cheers for Tuvalu, jeers for Rudd at today’s Walks Against Warming

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The tiny island state of Tuvalu has provided hope and inspiration to people everywhere who want a legally binding outcome from Copenhagen that gets beyond the greenwash and achieves what the climate needs.

Tuvalu's proposal would set a 350ppm goal, aimed at limiting warming to no more than 1.5C, and the kind of fair emissions reduction cuts that would actually achieve that goal.

But far from inspiring Prime Minister Rudd to lift his sights towards delivering a safe climate, it has prompted him to engage in more of the bullying for which he is becoming renowned in the region.

News leaked out today from several shocked Pacific island delegates here in Copenhagen that, instead of getting behind Tuvalu's call to real action, Mr Rudd had taken to the phones to tell Pacific Island political leaders that Australia took a dim view of what he called Tuvalu's "unproductive stance".

Those who have been watching this debate for a while will note that this is a repeat of Mr Rudd and his New Zealand counterpart, John Key's behaviour at the Pacific Island Forum hosted by Australia in Cairns a few months ago. At that forum, Mr Rudd and Mr Key blocked the release of a communiqué from Small Island States and restricting press access to their press conference, because the communiqué included targets Australia and NZ refused to accept - 45% below 1990 by 2020. Australia had no role in the Small Island States discussions, but Mr Rudd's bullying prevented them from saying what they wanted to say.

Mr Rudd is keen to tell the stories of just how vulnerable Pacific Island nations, people and cultures are in the face of climate change. But when those people call for action, Mr Rudd has no qualms about bullying them into submission.

This is another example of climate hypocrisy writ large from Mr Rudd.

Not content with bullying the Pacific, Australia is also continuing to try to cheat the atmosphere in the ongoing negotiations on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).

The negotiating text out today reveals several fatal flaws. Australia is one of several countries who will be pleased that the text satisfies their ambitions to be able to choose whatever baseline they like against which to measure logging emissions. If this remains in the text, it will mean that both Australia and the EU can agree to a higher emissions reduction target - 25% in the case of Australia and 30% in the case of the EU - knowing full well that 5-10% of that increased target will be achieved through sleight of hand and creative accounting. Our accounts might be satisfied by claiming reductions where none exist, but the atmosphere will not be fooled.

Not only that, but the negotiating text makes no differentiation between plantations and native forests in accounting terms when native forests hold many times more carbon than plantations do. It also removes any requirement for developed nations to go beyond "Tier 1" accounting methodology in reporting their land use changes to the more rigorous "Tier 2 and 3" that were proposed in previous versions of the text and as the IPCC had recommended. Now the more stringent requirements have been dropped altogether.

As with at Kyoto in 1997, Australian negotiators are trying to manipulate the rules to facilitate a windfall gain.

Australia's bid to cheat the system is matched by that of New Zealand, which has managed to have included in the text a clause which says that if you log a forest in one place, providing you plant an equivalent area somewhere else, no deforestation has occurred. This has no regard for the biodiversity and other ecological impacts of logging, and is highly questionable in terms of carbon impact.

As Australians march today for climate justice and a safe climate, and for the legally binding agreement out of Copenhagen that will deliver it, they should celebrate the courage of Pacific Island nations who are prepared to stand up in the global negotiations and demand it.

They should then go home and send an email to Kevin Rudd, telling him to stop trying to cheat the system, to either lead or stay home. Mr Rudd, stop bullying the Pacific - "we stand with Tuvalu".

How old will you be in 2050? Don’t [bracket] our future.

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It's intergenerational equity day today here at the Copenhagen climate talks and the Bella Centre is alive with young people wearing Australian designed bright orange t-shirts emblazoned with the slogans "How old will you be in 2050?" and "don't [bracket] our future?"

The slogans are a reference to the grindingly slow and tedious negotiating process of ‘bracketing' controversial text. In global negotiations when there is text that is not agreed by all parties it is put in brackets for negotiation and discussion at a future date. The youth are calling on global leaders to adopt strong emission reduction targets and a just and fair financing mechanism to help with mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is here in force and tracking the negotiations with enthusiasm. It is gratifying to see young Australians engaging so effectively in global negotiations.

Around the Bella centre there are events in which several of the 2000 youth delegates here are drawing attention to the fact that world leaders have been talking and negotiating for 17 years, the age of many of these youth delegates. The youth are telling leaders that their time is up and a legally binding decision to secure their future needs to be made here in Copenhagen.

You can see one of the AYCC flash dances and the bemused reaction of the crowd here.

Australia leading land use rorts again to meet even inadequate 25% target

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When the Government's CPRS was being debated I am sure it was not clear to most Australians that the 5 - 25 % emission reduction target was never going to be achieved through emissions trading. In fact, domestic energy emissions were not projected to fall until 2034.

The Government's secret to achieving its weak targets was to be focussed on Copenhagen and a bid to try to change the rules on how emissions from land use change and forestry are accounted for so as to deliver a windfall gain.

Environmentalists have argued for a decade that the Kyoto Protocol rules are flawed because countries can opt to not include their emissions from logging in their accounts. We have called for full carbon accounting which if adopted would show the massive loss of carbon to the atmosphere through the logging of native forests.

The way forest is currently defined in the Kyoto rules makes no distinction between native forests and plantations. This means that land conversion (logging native forest to turn into plantation, for example) is not defined as a land use change whose emissions must be accounted for. On top of this, if an area of forest has been clearfelled it is still counted as forest so long as the country claims an intention to one day grow trees there again.

Currently in Copenhagen, talks are bogged down over moves by Australia and the European Union to continue to hide the full extent of emissions from logging and land use. Australia is negotiating to try to massage the rules regarding emissions from this sector (known technically as land use, land use change and forestry, or LULUCF) and offsets from the reduced emission from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

Australia is arguing that it will not implement a 25% emission reduction target unless it succeeds in having emissions from natural disturbances, such as bushfires and droughts, excluded from its accounts. It also depends on hiding its emissions from logging native forests and plantations by developing a controversial new methodology.

What Australia wants to do is to project forward its business as usual emissions from logging and only account for any emissions above that scenario. As long as we don't log any more than we say we have planned to log, we can pretend we're not logging at all. Now there's a rort.

Developing countries are seriously unimpressed by efforts from Australia and the European Union to create loopholes for themselves under the LULUCF rules of the Kyoto Protocol whilst expecting a more robust accounting system for developing countries under the REDD rules.

The breach of trust this represents has the potential to undermine the whole negotiations, not to mention make a mockery of any targets that are agreed. What is the use of a target which can be met through deceitful means?

The atmosphere cannot be fooled.