John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Of course it is occurring. Self-evidently, climate change is occurring. I await with interest the full report of Sir Nicholas Stern, but from preliminary reports—and also analysis of those preliminary reports by the ever-vigilant member for Lilley—we know a number of things. We know first and foremost that you need to have a variety of responses to climate change. I would imagine that, if you need a variety of responses, one of the responses has to include a sensible examination of the nuclear power alternative.

Equally, Sir Nicholas, I understand—and this is self-evident—says that you cannot have a solution that does not involve in an effective way all of the international polluters. And I noticed that this was picked up. I impose a harsh discipline on myself of a morning, but one of the things I did this morning was to listen to the member for Lilley. Having said that, I have to make my peace with my colleague the Treasurer. I listened very carefully to the member for Lilley and he had a remarkable statement to make. He said it is very important for everybody to be part of the solution—countries like China and India had to be part of the solution—and, therefore, he was very disappointed that Australia had not ratified the Kyoto protocol. What he did not go on to acknowledge was that China and India, although being part of Kyoto, do not carry the same burden under Kyoto that Australia carries. That is the reason why, until that changes, this country will not join Kyoto, because, unless you have everybody in, you are not going to have a solution to the problem. I am not going to sign up to something that imposes burdens on my country that are not imposed on our competitors. That is the reason. Of course if you could reach an agreement that had the involvement of China, the involvement of the United States and the involvement of India, you would begin to find the basis of a worldwide approach to this problem, but, until you get all of them involved, you are not going to find a solution to this problem.

See this speech in context