Greenhouse: An Overview of Australian Policy and Practice

Greenhouse-induced climatic change is an extremely complex global problem with political, economic, social, cultural, technological and environmental challenges. Development of an international environmental regime for climate change is still in an embryonic state with a process-oriented Framework Convention with few commitments having been signed by 156 states including Australia at United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992. Australia ratified the convention on 31 December 1992 being the eighth nation to do so. The convention came into force 90 days after 50 nations ratified it in March 1994. As a developed country party to the convention, Australia is expected to aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 and to report on progress towards such stabilisation in the meantime. This article examines Australian policy development to date, including the National Greenhouse Response Strategy released in December 1992, and discusses the apparent barriers to achieving the convention's stabilisation goal for Australia. It is argued that factors including scientific uncertainty, the long-term policy horizon of decades and political will, together with Australia's economic dependence on the energy sector, could result in greenhouse policy inertia during the remainder of the 1990s. For the future, it is recommended that more specific greenhouse mitigation and adaptation policy guidelines, including priorities for implementation for the 1990s, should be developed to prevent policy inertia.