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

is to develop alternatives to the use of fossil fuel—alternatives that involve everybody sharing the burden and not placing an unfair burden on the industries of Australia. There is nothing in the Stern report—and I have read the executive summary; I do not pretend to have read the 700 pages—that is contrary to what I am saying, because in the end you will not solve this problem until you get an effective international agreement. Kyoto was never an effective international agreement and that is why we did not sign it, but we are committed to working with other countries and we are very active in trying to achieve an agreement that does include everybody. The other thing I have to say is that the response to the problem is multifaceted. We clearly need to invest more in technologies to clean up coal, we clearly need to invest in renewables and we clearly need to look at the nuclear option.

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