The Australian
By: Dennis Shanahan, Political editor
GLOBAL FIGHT
Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong will lobby China at this week's G8 summit in Japan to take further action to combat greenhouse gas emissions as they push for Australia's own emissions trading scheme by 2010.
In Tokayo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, the Prime Minister and the Climate Change Minister will also be lobbying the world's leading economies on international fuel prices.
Despite a big climate change agenda for the Group of Eight advanced economies, the global oil shock is threatening to push environmental concerns into the background of the summit.
As Mr Rudd and Senator Wong continued to argue yesterday for the introduction of an ETS by 2010 following the release of the Garnaut report, they are keen to get global commitments on greenhouse gas reduction targets, especially from China and India.
Because the Rudd Government is taking a lead in introducing an ETS without a global carbon price being set, there is domestic political pressure to convince voters that jobs will not be lost overseas.
Last week, India announced a range of measures aimed at cutting emissions but is avoiding binding targets.
Wayne Swan said last week that Mr Rudd was going to the G8 to speak to China and other large greenhouse gas emitters in an effort to bridge the gap between developed and developing nations. "There is a split, if you like, between developed and developing nations about the objectives of the scheme,'' the Treasurer said. "We've got to try and bridge that gap in the years ahead, and we're going to be working hard on this both internationally as well as nationally.''
Mr Rudd is attending the G8 meeting on its final day as an observer, but has a scheduled meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and will be seeing other delegations.
Australia wants the leaders of the G8 industrialised nations -- the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia -- to adopt specific measures on climate change.
The summit is expected to endorse an agreement by G8 environment ministers in May to cut emissions by half by 2050. The leaders are also likely to seek agreement on setting country-by-country goals for reducing emissions over the medium term from 2013 and announce joint investments of more than $US10 billion ($10.4billion) a year on research and development of technology to combat global warming.
But climate change is expected to play second fiddle to concerns about rising food and fuel costs.
Yesterday, aid agency Oxfam said Mr Rudd, even as an observer, must apply "the blowtorch'' on food prices as well as fuel prices at the Tokayo summit.
"As millions of people across this region struggle to find enough food to eat each day, Kevin Rudd must use his influence as a regional leader to ensure G8 places the world's food crisis at the top of its agenda,'' Oxfam Australia's acting executive director James Ensor said.