RUDD AWAKENING: NO POST-KYOTO DEAL WITHOUT BINDING TARGETS FOR CHINA, INDIA

Australia's Centre-Left is now sounding very much like George Bush -- much though they would loathe that comparison

Trade Minister Simon Crean says developing countries like China and India must set tough binding emissions targets before Australia agrees to a new Kyoto agreement beyond 2012. Last week the Australian delegation indicated it supported a 25 to 40 per cent cut in emissions for developed countries beyond 2012. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was not the Government's position.

Mr Crean, who is in Bali for trade talks today, says developing countries must agree to binding targets before Australia commits. "Australia's task is at the appropriate time to commit to targets but it's also to try and secure binding commitments from developing countries," he said. "We all know the environmental imperative of facing up to the challenge of climate change." Mr Crean said Australia was not going to sign up to any binding commitments on battling climate change until they had the results of a report commissioned by Mr Rudd's climate change economic specialist, expected next year.

The European Union, developing countries led by China, and environmental activists are urging the rich world to commit to reducing their polluting greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020.

But Mr Crean said that promises by rich countries alone to cut carbon dioxide emissions would not solve global warming. Environment ministers will arrive in Bali at the end of next week, while trade and finance ministers and representatives have begun gathering on the sidelines of the summit. "The meeting of trade ministers emphasises the point that it is not just an environmental imperative that we're dealing with, but the economic opportunities that come from solving climate change," Mr Crean said.

Mr Rudd will confirm Australia's position when he arrives in Bali next week.

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TROPIC FEVER OVER CARBON TARGETS

Kevin Rudd will need all his diplomatic skills in Bali, as the sides have already squared off fiercely at the climate change talks, writes Marian Wilkinson. There is a simple but powerful equation that was being thrown at officials and reporters from the developed nations in Bali this week. Almost 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas pollution already causing climate change was put into the atmosphere in the past by rich countries as they built prosperous economies for fewer than a fifth of the world's population.

Officials from China, India, Africa and the small island nations argued, at times acrimoniously, at the United Nations climate talks that this inescapable reality means rich countries must shoulder much of the burden in the fight to slow climate change and pay much of the bill to weather the damage that will continue for decades.

This is the harsh diplomatic reality facing the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and his Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, when they arrive in Bali early next week. While scientific necessity, and the developed world, demand that heavily polluting developing countries such as China and India must rein in their own soaring emissions, the fight over who pays most and who sacrifices most underscored every discussion in Bali this week.

The crucial talks that began on Monday have one main aim: to agree to begin formal negotiations that will produce a new global climate change agreement by 2009. The outcome in Bali is not supposed to determine targets for rich or developing countries. But as officials from more than 180 nations ground out proposals for the "road map" to this agreement, the debate over what targets the rich countries would meet was impossible to ignore.

Led by China's formidable delegation, the developing world asked explicitly whether developed countries were trying to walk away from a consensus reached in Vienna earlier this year that they should take the lead in making deep cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. This proposal emerged from the hard scientific facts put together by the UN's peak scientific body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If the world is going to avoid dangerous climate change, it needs to halve the soaring level of emissions by mid-century. To do that it must start now. The UN recognised that industrialised countries have the technology and government institutions capable of taking the lead. Under the principles of the Kyoto Protocol, that is expected.

As a newly ratified member of the protocol, Australia is now aligned with that position. But this week, developed countries under the protocol, such as Japan and Canada, appeared to want to water down the Vienna consensus. After a week of basking in plaudits for Australia's ratification of Kyoto, Rudd suddenly found Australia's position on the Vienna proposals under scrutiny. Where did Australia stand on developed countries cutting their emissions between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020?

Critically, the so-called Vienna Declaration does not commit individual developed countries to these cuts now. And how they can be achieved is up for debate. But in Bali this week, the developing world demanded that the Vienna proposal be recognised.

Europe and New Zealand confirmed their support for the Vienna Declaration, and by Wednesday night the Australian delegation did as well. But immediately, Rudd at home had to confront accusations from the Opposition that he had committed Australia to reckless cuts in emissions that would damage the economy. He was quick to insist that the Vienna Declaration was not a commitment.

"The target that you referred to, 25-40, is in fact contained in what is described generally as the Vienna Declaration," he explained. "Many states have publicly recognised the work of the IPCC in putting together that report but, in so doing, states have also indicated that they do not necessarily accept those targets, nor do they accept those targets as binding targets for themselves. That has been a reality since the Vienna Declaration was issued in August of this year. That is also the position of the Australian Government."

He repeated, as he did before the election, that Australia will not set any 2020 target until the report by the economist Ross Garnaut is delivered next year. That, he said, "is to ensure that those targets are meaningful environmentally and responsible economically. And that's the way ahead".

But in Bali, Rudd will not so easily duck this issue. As he spoke in Brisbane, in Bali the head of the UN climate negotiating team, Yvo de Boer, told reporters he had just come from a meeting discussing the Vienna proposals. And he said: "I think it is clear to everyone that industrialised countries will have to continue to take the lead. All countries, all governments, realise that industrialised countries will have to reduce their emissions somewhere between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020. So that's an agreed range for industrialised countries."

Australian and UN officials are anxiously stressing that these targets do not have to be signed or sealed in Bali or, indeed, until some way down the track. The Kyoto Protocol's first targets do not expire until 2012. Under these, Australia has an easy ride. While many developed nations agreed to cut their emissions by up to 5 per cent on 1990s levels, Australia was allowed to increase its emissions by 8 per cent of 1990 levels. Unfortunately for Rudd, this deal, and a decade of inaction by the Howard government to slow Australia's soaring emissions, means that making deep cuts by 2020 will be difficult.

While Australia can correctly insist the 2020 targets are not up for discussion in Bali, they are now deeply colouring the debate as officials move behind closed doors to nut out a deal on the road map.

Put simply, the Bali talks have divided the developing world and the developed. And among some developing nations, especially India, there is a very hard line emerging that there should be no concessions until the developed world takes the lead on cutting emissions, agrees to technology transfers and puts up serious money to fund the world's adaption to climate change.

On the other side, Japan among others wants to see serious proposals from China and India on emissions reductions before it agrees to commitments after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's first round expires. The new global agreement that follows this cannot give its two biggest competitors, the US and China, an unfair advantage.

The hope is that a consensus will prevail. It is possible there will be a commitment to begin negotiations on two tracks: one will continue down the Kyoto track to pursue commitments from nations which have ratified the protocol. The other will be under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, called the dialogue track. This would include the developing countries and the US, which remains outside Kyoto and opposed to binding targets. By 2009 these two tracks could come together in a final agreement.

By the time Rudd attends the Bali talks early next week it will be clear whether a consensus is emerging. Along with the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, and the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he will be performing on the main stage. This week, Rudd said he wanted to act as a "bridge" between the developed and developing world, especially between China and the US.

But when he stands to make his statement on the floor of the talks, many in the developing world will be listening to what the new Prime Minister will say about the burden Australia and the developed world are willing to take in the battle to save the planet.

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Perth Muslim school raided and shut down

A MUSLIM school in Perth has been raided by police and shut down by WA Education Minister Mark McGowan. The school's head faces a stealing charge. Mr McGowan said he had taken the extraordinary step of closing Muslim Ladies' College in Kenwick because of allegations, including fraud and the use of unregistered teachers who were focusing mainly on religion, rather than the WA curriculum.

The school's acting director, Zubair Sayed, appeared in East Perth Magistrates Court charged with stealing. The court was told the charge related to an alleged theft offence - of $355,934 - in April, when Mr Sayed, of Sarah Close, Canning Vale, was a company director of Muslim Links Australia Ltd.

It is alleged the school was overclaiming for state and federal government funds for students. Police prosecutor Sgt Scott McCormick told the court that detectives had discovered the money had been sent to Pakistan. "This is a matter which is of extreme seriousness, whereby Mr Sayed obtained public money from the commonwealth by deceit," Sgt McCormick said. "The state wishes to put on the record that this is a very serious charge."

The court was told that Mr Sayed wrote a Commonwealth Bank cheque for money from the Federal Government that was meant for the Muslim Ladies' College to educate students. At the time, Mr Sayed's brother was principal of the college. Magistrate Vicki Stewart granted Mr Sayed bail, with conditions he surrender his passport, not be within 1km of international sea or air ports, report to a police station each Wednesday and reside at his home address. He was released on $100,000 bail and a $100,000 surety to reappear in Perth Magistrates Court on January 2 next year.

On Friday, Mr McGowan said: "I want to make it clear that this decision (to close the school) has not been made because this is a Muslim school. "This decision has been made because this is a school that is not educating students properly. "An investigation into the operations of the college by the Department of Educational Services began in December 2006 - following complaints about the conduct of the principal-administrator, staffing of the college and the educational program.'' Key areas investigated included whether teachers were registered, the appropriateness of qualifications of teachers, inadequate educational leadership and standard of education, and the sufficiency of the school's resources.

Mr McGowan said other concerns were about the college's governance structure, the condition of buildings, and facilities and enrolment, and attendance procedures. He said it was found that teachers were inexperienced in teaching and understanding the curriculum framework, and students weren't being taught all required subjects. "The college has employed a number of unregistered teachers and many with limited authority to teach,'' he said. "Teachers are not spending 50 per cent of the school day on literacy and numeracy, as required. "Instead (they) spend a large amount of time on religious studies. This is clearly unacceptable and seriously damaging to the student's academic well-being. "The school is not being properly led because the director of the college (Anwar Sayed) is in Afghanistan and has been for most of the year."

Mr McGowan wrote to the school's governing body to notify them of his decision, which took effect from Friday. He said enrolments had declined in the past year, from about 90 students at the beginning of 2007 to about 50 or 60 students currently.

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Oz troops to remain in Afghanistan

AUSTRALIAN troops will remain in Afghanistan until at least 2010, doubling the original two-year commitment. But the decision for troops to stay has not been formally announced or debated, Fairfax newspapers said. Instead, the Dutch government has broken the news about the Australian troops staying on for several years. The Netherlands has decided to extend its Afghan deployment until August 2010, in part because Australians will also extend their stay, it confirmed.

Last year, the Howard government said its reconstruction troops, sent to Afghanistan in August last year, were going for two years. The news reveals Australia's deployment has blown out to at least four years, and defence chiefs say securing Afghanistan, by defeating the Taliban, could take at least a decade.

It is unknown who decided to extend the Australia's troops' stay in the war-torn country. A spokeswoman for Labor Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, said "no formal decisions" had been made about extending Australia's involvement. "Labor has indicated for some time that we would consider further reasonable requests for military assistance in Afghanistan," the spokeswoman said.

Australia's extended commitment was revealed in Dutch parliament on November 30.

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Muslim Turk beauty defies critics



THE Muslim teenager who generated a wave of controversy by entering last year's Miss Teen Australia beauty contest has made this year's finals. Then aged 16, Melbourne schoolgirl Ayten Ahmet was condemned by Muslim leaders when she entered last year's competition, with Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran branding participation by Muslim girls as "a slur on Islam".

However, this year reactions had been more low key for Ayten, who was one of 12 Miss Teen Australia finalists at the Gold Coast's WhiteWater World yesterday. "It hasn't really been a big deal this year," she said. "At the time last year I said it (religion) wasn't really relevant to me entering the competition."

Being the centre of a raging debate on Muslim values was difficult for the teenager, but it did not dissuade her from entering again. "My family has been very supportive," she said. "It was made into a big issue by some people last year but I didn't see it as anything wrong."

Former Gold Coast Islamic Society president Naseem Abdul said Ayten was free to make her own decisions about entering modelling or beauty competitions. "It is her life," he said. "She is an individual, she can decide for herself if she wants to do that sort of thing, it doesn't affect or offend me in any way."

The winner of this year's pageant was due to be crowned last night.

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