Japan, China And Russia Don’t Believe What Gillard Tells Australia

Posted on Mon 05/30/2011 by PA Pundits - International

By Andrew Bolt

Which makes it even crazier for Australia to slash its own emissions, unilaterally:

AUSTRALIA’S mining industry has seized on the refusal of three major economies to sign on to a new round of Kyoto Protocol emissions cuts, as Tony Abbott warned even a business-endorsed $10-a-tonne carbon price would cost jobs.

Russia, Japan and Canada confirmed at the weekend G8 meeting they would not join a second round of carbon cuts if developing countries are not being required to make their own emissions reductions.

Now, note the reason given by these countries for not making further cuts themselves:

They argued that the Kyoto format did not require developing countries, including China, the world’s No. 1 carbon emitter, to make targeted emission cuts.

China’s emissions are soaring and it will not agree to cut them. This puts the lie to Julia Gillard’s attempts to fool us into thinking China was also slashing emissions:

You know, China [is] closing down a dirty coal-fired power generation facility at the rate of one every one or two weeks. Putting up a wind turbine at the rate of one every hour. They set their own targets by 2020 of reducing carbon pollution by 40 to 45 per cent per unit of GDP

It also puts the lie to the attempt by Climate Comnmisioner Will Steffen to make us think our own cuts were matched by China’s:

Steffen: Australia’s not acting alone. China’s already acting… They’re phasing out inefficient coal-fired power stations.

So if China really was “already acting”, why do Japan, Canada and Russia not buy that argument?

Oh, make that four nations:

At last Thursday’s G8 dinner the US President, Barack Obama, confirmed Washington would not join an updated Kyoto Protocol, the diplomats said.

Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.

Andrew Bolt’s columns appear in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Advertiser. He runs the most-read political blog in Australia and hosts Channel 10’s The Bolt Report each Sunday at 10am. He is also heard from Monday to Friday at 8am on the breakfast show of radio station MTR 1377, and his book Still Not Sorry remains very widely read.

Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog . http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/