Australia's environment minister refused to say yesterday whether he believed Australia should belatedly ratify the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia and the US are the only industrialized countries that have not signed on to the treaty setting targets to reduce carbon pollution, agreed at a UN climate change meeting at Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.
But the Weekend Australian and the Financial Review reported on Saturday that Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged his Cabinet colleagues to ratify the agreement during a meeting six weeks ago.
Turnbull's proposal received some Cabinet support, but was largely rebuffed by ministers, the newspaper said, citing unidentified government personnel.
LEAK ALLEGED
News Corp newspapers accused Turnbull yesterday of placing his government's re-election plans in disarray by leaking the Cabinet disagreement to the press.
Turnbull yesterday denied leaking to the press and declined to say what had occurred in Cabinet.
He also repeatedly refused to say whether he agreed with Australian Prime Minister John Howard's decision to reject Kyoto.
"It's not for me to express personal opinions," Turnbull told Sky News television.
Howard yesterday refused to say what had happened in Cabinet.
"What the world needs, what Australia needs, is a new international agreement that binds all the major emitters including China and the United States," Howard told Nine Network television.
He said Pacific Rim leaders including those of the US and China had made a start at the APEC summit he chaired in Sydney last month when they agreed pursue nonbinding aspirational goals to reduce carbon pollution.
OPPOSITION PLEDGE
The opposition Labor Party has promised to ratify Kyoto if it wins elections next month. Labor is leading Howard's coalition in opinion polls.
Saturday's newspaper report said Turnbull told his colleagues they would gain credibility and lose nothing by accepting the Kyoto targets.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS