Copenhagen attendees attack Australia’s climate change performance

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been attacked at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, just hours after he reached the city in the hope of hashing out a binding deal on reducing emissions.

Lumamba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group and China, has said Australia’s efforts so far in combating climate change are “simply not good enough”.

“The message Kevin Rudd is giving to his people, his citizens, is a fabrication, it’s fiction,” he told the ABC. “It does not relate to the facts because his actions are climate change scepticism in action. All that Australia has done so far is simply not good enough.”

“It’s puzzling in the sense that here is a Prime Minister who actually won the elections because of his commitment to climate change,” he said. “And within a very short period of time he changes his mind, changes his position, he starts acting as if he has been converted into climate change scepticism. All that Australia has done so far is simply not good enough.”

Additionally, former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has said Rudd is using the topic of climate change in order to gain more governmental power.

“It’s typical not just of the Prime Minister but of a number of other advocates of the kinds of solutions being discussed at Copenhagen, that these solutions, greater government control of the economy, greater government regulation, government interference in all of our daily lives, is something many of these people have believed in for decades even before global warming was an issue,” he also told the ABC.

“There is another agenda at play, one that is philosophically attuned to increased government regulation whether there is global warming, global cooling or no change at all. My point is what is being talked about in Copenhagen not as the problem but as the solution to the problem is doomed to failure.”

India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh also said “Australia is the sort of the ayatollah of the single track”.

But Rudd is confident of a positive outcome, saying he intends to work with his counterparts to hash out the basic form of an agreement.

“While there is no guarantee of success at getting a global agreement, my aim here is to secure the best deal for Australia’s national interest – that means getting a genuine agreement between rich and poor countries to tackle climate change for the first time,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, UN secretary-general Ban K-Moon has said the divide between rich and poor nations should stop and comprehensive discussions should begin on how to tackle global warming.

“We have come a long way. Let us not falter in the home stretch,” he said in a statement. “Our goal is to lay the foundation for a legally binding climate treaty as early as possible in 2010.”

“We do not have another year to deliberate – nature does not negotiate with us.”

His comments come after a number of delegates have said the divisions between nations are growing and that the talks are not progressing as quickly as hoped.

Government leaders are now in the process of meeting over the next few days.