Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned there was no “magic pudding” solution to climate change yesterday as he lashed out over the defeat of his flagship carbon-trading scheme.
Rudd mocked the opposition Liberal Party’s reported plan to slash pollution with energy efficiency measures as a “bit of fairy dust” and called for “wiser heads” to pass the bill at the third attempt.
The defeat of the legislation, aiming to cut carbon emissions by between 5 percent and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020, leaves Rudd empty-handed as he heads to next week’s UN climate talks in Copenhagen.
“For the Liberals now to say that there is a magic pudding solution on climate change, that somehow if you throw a bit of fairy dust at it and say that bang, it all happens, without any adjustment challenges, I don’t think that’s being fair dinkum,” he told reporters.
Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) was voted down 41 to 33 on Wednesday in the upper-house Senate, where neither the government or opposition Coalition holds a majority.
The prime minister, who passed up the chance to call snap polls after the bill’s second defeat, said he had “always” wanted to serve a full three-year term and urged an opposition re-think over the Christmas break.
Climate change skeptic Tony Abbott, who ousted Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal Party leader during the turbulent debate, has said he will oppose the third reading of the bill, which he describes as a “great big new tax.”
Rudd also took a humorous swipe at his new sparring partner’s choice of swimwear, after Abbott was pictured wearing only “budgie-smuggler” Speedo trunks and a lifesaver’s cap in Monday’s newspapers.
“If there was a referendum tomorrow between budgie-smugglers and boardies [board shorts], I think I would be voting for boardies,” he said. “There should be certain things the Australian people are protected from, and that’s national political leaders so attired.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not