Australia resources buoyed by UN climate talks stand

Australia resources buoyed by UN climate talks stand

SYDNEY (Reuters): Australia's powerful resources sector on
Monday welcomed a strong stand by the federal government at
collapsed UN climate talks in The Hague.

This followed a breakdown of the talks, aimed at limiting
greenhouse gas emissions, after Australia, the U.S., Canada and
Japan insisted that carbon sinks, or forests which absorb
greenhouse gases, be included in counts of carbon dioxide
emission control.

Australia -- a major producer of coal and metals which rely on
hefty inputs of coal-fired electricity -- was split between
industry and its strong environment lobby on Monday after The
Hague talks collapsed.

Greenpeace activists chained themselves to a shale oil plant
in Queensland to protest failure of the Hague talks and the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) called on Australia to stop looking
for carbon credit "loopholes".

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry also expressed
disappointment at the lack of agreement in The Hague.

But Australia's resources sector was jubilant that the federal
government, which took exactly the stand at the climate talks
that the producers wanted it to do, had held out against emission
curbs without carbon sink tradeoffs.

"I was encouraged to see that countries are prepared to stand
their ground...ultimately that will lead to a much more practical
outcome," Michael Pinnock, joint executive director of the
Australian Coal Association, said.

"If they'd caved in and had a meaningless papered-over
agreement, that would have been much worse, disastrous," he said.

Australia is the world's largest coal exporter, shipping about
175 million tons, worth around A$8.3 billion, a year.

The Australian aluminum industry, which uses major inputs of
coal-fired electricity to produce almost 10 percent of the
world's aluminium each year, was similarly pleased.

"We certainly supported the broad lines taken by the
government...they did a pretty good job," said David Coutts,
executive director of the Australian Aluminium Council.

"You just can't say 'hey, we're suddenly not going to have any
fossil fuel anymore'."

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said it was
disappointed with the lack of agreement at The Hague.

"Business has not been given the certainty it wanted. The
world had missed the opportunity to take real steps to reduce
greenhouse emissions by introducing market-based mechanisms,"
chief executive Mark Paterson said.

Australia, together with Canada and Japan, backed the U.S. in
The Hague in arguing that Kyoto targets could not be met without
gas emission counts including carbon dioxide soaked up by forests
through carbon sinks.

This was opposed most strongly by European nations.

Australian business said on Monday it saw the lack of
agreement at The Hague as merely a suspension of negotiations.

Flexing muscles

"I think if everyone goes back in May (at the next meetings)
having taken a deep breath and a cold shower we would be pretty
hopeful that a sensible conclusion can be reached," Coutts said.

"If you keep asking for things which are undeliverable and
very questionable in dealing realistically with long-term
problems, you have people that are not prepared to agree with
it," he said.

Coutts blamed the EU and extreme environment groups for the
failure of agreement in The Hague.

Australia's resources industries, some of the country's
largest, were major beneficiaries of the Kyoto agreement of 1997,
which permitted Australia to increase its emissions by eight
percent on its 1990 level.