91av

Australia has become a little greener.

Within days of decisively winning the general election on 24 November, Kevin Rudd, head of the and incoming prime minister, announced his intention to ratify the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Australia would sign up within weeks, he said, securing his country the opportunity to participate in all negotiations at next week’s climate change meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

This about-turn further isolates the US, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, which under the Bush administration will remain one of two nations with significant emissions not to sign up to the Kyoto treaty. The other is Kasakhstan.

Commentators say voters were influenced by a perceived lack of concern for the environment by outgoing prime minister John Howard, who held the post for 11 years as head of the . The Labor Party won by a 6 per cent margin of the vote. Howard proudly called himself a climate-change sceptic, but as Australia’s drought of the century continued to bite (91av, 13 June 2007, p 8) and the public became increasingly concerned about global warming, Howard made a surprise announcement in July that Australia would have its own “cap and trade” carbon reduction scheme.

, the country’s environmental party, also received a record vote, although not as large a shift as some polls had predicted.