The Last of the Mohicans
6th December 2007
Donald Burfitt-Dons

The Australian delegate covered himself in glory in Bali by signing up to the Kyoto Agreement. Timing was perfect as 187 delegates assembled in Bali to begin the process of shaping up the son of Kyoto, which is due to expire in 2012.

Since the original agreement, which puts statutory limits on greenhouse gas emissions limiting them to 5% below the 1990 levels, Australia had been amongst just two recalcitrant nations which refused to endorse the agreement. Over the last year devastating drought in South Australia, blistering bush fires in New South Wales and engulfing floods in Victoria had forced the previous government to soften its stand. Embarrassed by the governments own principal scientific body, the C.S.I.R.O. which accepted the anthropogenic background to global warming, the Howard government looked very out of touch with it’s own people let alone world opinion.

As the first official act of the incoming Rudd administration the signing set an optimistic tone to the meeting in Bali. The new government also wasted no time in establishing an Australian climate change research facility.

And what about the last of the Mohicans? Perhaps there are lessons to be learnt from the recent election in Australia. If they are grasped in time by the Bush administration they might not necessarily join the Mohicans into extinction. As the man nearly said, a year is a long time in politics. Let us hope, in the interests of mankind’s future, that the world’s last superpower acts sooner rather than later.