AFP/Sydney
Powerful climate change sceptics were “holding the world to ransom”, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday as he warned of fear campaigns designed to derail global talks.
Rudd said nay-sayers were active in every country as the world approached the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December. “They are a minority. They are powerful. And invariably they are driven by vested interests,” he said.
Rudd said it was difficult to move towards a global agreement in the face of those who denied climate change was caused by human activity, those who refused to act on the evidence, or who wanted other countries to act first.
“As we approach Copenhagen, these groups of climate sceptics are quite literally holding the world to ransom,” he told policy think-tank, the Lowy Institute.
“Provoking fear campaigns in every country they can; blocking or delaying domestic legislation in every country they can; with the objective of slowing and if possible destroying the momentum towards a global deal on climate change,” he said.
The centre-left Labor leader who campaigned strongly on the environment ahead of his 2007 election, said Australia was one of the hottest and driest countries on earth and would suffer more drought and higher temperatures if no action was taken.
“Climate change deniers are small in number, but they are too dangerous to be ignored. They are well-resourced and well represented in many countries,” Rudd said. “And the danger they pose is this: by collapsing political momentum towards national and global action on climate change, they collapse global political will to act at all.”
Some 190 countries will meet in Copenhagen to thrash out a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.