Climate change focuses downunda

Evidently the international debate on climate change - and what we should do about it - is going to be focussed on Australia for the next week or so (Ah! Fleeting glory!). According to Alan Oxley in the Australian there are to be three international conferences in Australia this week.

THIS week experts on climate change descend on Australia for three international conferences. The Kyoto Protocol is moribund. All focus on the one question: What climate change strategies should we adopt in the future?

Two options have emerged: replace the fractured Kyoto model with another model using regulations to reduce greenhouse gases; or change tack and foster technologies that reduce emissions.

The first is the Australian APEC Study Centre Conference, 'Managing Climate Change: Practicalities and Realities in a post-Kyoto future' Which according Mr Oxley is "a reality check. US and Chinese officials explained why Kyoto is moribund and why the low-emission technology route (rather than regulation) is the only practicable climate change policy.". Of course the fact that he is chairman of the APEC Study Centre at Monash University, which hosted the Canberra conference might have something to do with his attitude.

The second, The Climate Conference, is in Melbourne tomorrow, the 6th. According to Oxley it "is for the cataclysmists.

British government meteorologists will recycle claims that climate change is becoming dangerous ... It is being supported by the British Government and British companies that have become global-warming activists. The Blair Government has adopted expensive energy taxes to reduce emissions (and competitiveness) and is on a global mission to get others to do the same. It failed to shift George Bush and John Howard, but it has evidently persuaded Carr and John Thwaites, Victoria's Deputy Premier and Environment Minister.

The third, the Australia-New Zealand Climate Forum is to be here in Sydney on Thursday & Friday, convened by the Pew Centre, "a privately funded US green foundation that houses environmentalists from the Clinton-Gore administration (Oxley)"

It has been encouraging state governments in the US to set up their own system to control emissions. This conference is supported by national environmental departments in Australia and New Zealand.

... which seems to get right up Alan Oxley's nose.

Perhaps I'm being paranoid but this type of article in the Age just smacks of an establishment white-wash. Oxley's supercilious attitude towards what are obviously his opponents is blindingly obvious - He is so patently right and they are so childishly wrong ... or so he would have us believe.

We are talking about opinions here and politically motivated lobbyists. Where are the facts? Where are the options? Why not do both for example? Regulate the Greenhouse gas creators *and* encourage green technologies? I would have thought this would be a win-win situation.

For anyone who didn't have a vested interest, that is. And this is the impression that Mr Oxley is giving, I'm afraid.