New climate of opportunity for Australia behind PM Rudd

From the first Monday of December – nine days after his victory – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali. 11 days, 198 countries, and 10,000 delegates; thanks to 3,000 journalists in attendance, the whole world actually will be watching.

Forecasting change from a third of a world away the UK’s Guardian newspaper last week ran two lengthy feature stories – one aptly titled ‘It’s the environment, John’, the other characterizing “the world’s first climate change election”.

Most Australians are keenly aware of pressured environments and impacts of climate change. Yet for many who wonder what they can do to actively help, answers such as ‘buy a Prius’ or ‘use a washing line’ have offered little real incentive. Their collective vote, however, must surely be one of the single biggest acts of grassroots environmentalism in Australian history.

Thanks perhaps to a distracted or tentative media, many Australians don’t yet realize what a dramatic climate change U-turn this country has just taken. But it puts the country on course to joining Kyoto and, more immediately, the far-from-ordinary climate conference in Bali.

It is expected that our representatives will deposit a letter with the peak body, signed by Rudd and committing to fully ratify Kyoto. Australia will be joining a global community in crisis, rather than complaining from the sidelines and, perhaps more significantly, America will be left as the sole developed nation opposed to ratification – an outright pariah at last.