Jennifer Marohasy

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New Australian Prime Minister Wrong to Fast Track Kyoto Ratification?

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Australia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. This was Kevin Rudd’s first official act as the new Australian Prime Minister.

But according to an international law expert, Donald Rothwell, without domestic legislation in place the new government could be in breach of its international legal obligations.

According to the Professor, the normal method for ratifying treaties is not a speedy process but rather involves the preparation of a national impact analysis, then a parliamentary inquiry and enacting new domestic laws.

No national impact analysis had been undertaken on Kyoto – but we have ratified nevertheless.

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Thanks to Ian Mott for the story.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Helen Mahar says

    It was my understanding that Parliamentary approval was needed prior to ratification. Parliament has not met yet. Has Prime Minister Rudd exceeded powers?

  4. Ian Mott says

    It will be interesting to see whether Krudd follows the practice, started by himself, Swan and Goss in Qld, and now entrenched during the corrupt Beattie regime, of completely doing away with the joint parliamentary committee process altogether.

    At a time when Krudd was overseeing legislation that appeared to have the highest moral and ethical intentions, like the (titter, titter) Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 (hehehehe) which has NO actual provision for dealing with breaches (Muuaaahaaahaaa), he also scrapped this critical vehicle for ensuring that all sides of an important issue were examined and the public was properly informed via dissenting reports.

    It is quite clear, by the use of partisan “rent-an-expert” Ross Garnaut, that Krudd has no intention of allowing proper examination of the complex issue of climate change through the joint parliamentary committee of inquiry process.

    That dull thud you just heard was the fall of one of the central pillars of democracy. It seems, with more than a touch of ironic chill, that climate change is too important to be dealt with by tried and tested democratic mechanisms.

  6. Allen Ford says

    Analytical Chemist Hans Schreuder, who publishes the website ILoveMyCarbonDioxide.com, puts some perspective into the picture with the following calculations pertaining to the numbers about carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

    “Here are the calculations, based on information obtained directly from the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute in De Bilt, Holland (KNMI).

    Mass (air) = 5.3 x 10^18 kg = 5,300,000,000 Gigatons

    Mass (CO2)=3 x 10^15 kg=3,000,000 Gigatons (that’s 3,000 million million kg, OK?!)

    Man-made emissions of CO2 are estimated at 110ppm, which is 28.95% of the total CO2 and that equals 868,500 Gigatons.

    This equates to 0.0164% by mass of the total atmosphere, almost invisible!

    Can anybody explain to me how such an insignificant quantity of a gaseous substance can possible heat up the entire column of air?”

    Good question! …and if any warmer can come up with an intelligent answer, along with the necessary rigorous proof, they can make an easy $US150,000 from Steve Milloy over at junkscience.com . Steve’s challenge has been upped twice, from $100,000, and after 129 days, at last count, remains unclaimed.

    Go for it, Luke et al!

  7. SJT says

    Allen

    Try putting that concentration of arsenic in a human body and watch the reaction.

    Or explain to me why they deride the CO2 concentration as being insignificant, but praise it’s ability to provide the carbon for plant life. Those massive trees out there got it all from the atmosphere.

    Maybe you should read up on the science instead of making an argument from ignorance.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

  8. Allen Ford says

    SJT, you haven’t answered the question!! The toxicology of As is irrelevant, as is the relationship between CO2 and plant growth. To repeat, the question is the thermodynamics of CO2 in relation to the total mass of the atmosphere. If you have an intelligent answer, $US150,000 is yours for the taking!

    Also, please point out where the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute’s numbers, and Schreuder’s calcualtions, are in error.

  9. mitchell porter says

    “Can anybody explain to me how such an insignificant quantity of a gaseous substance can possible heat up the entire column of air?”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect#Greenhouse_gases
    “The molecules/atoms that constitute the bulk of the atmosphere: oxygen (O2), nitrogen (N2) and argon; do not interact with infrared radiation significantly… In the Earth’s atmosphere, the dominant infrared absorbing gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, and ozone (O3).”

    So only a fraction of the molecules in the atmosphere are capable of absorbing infrared directly; but then they transfer that energy to the other molecules via collision. Read the whole section, it goes into more detail.

  10. Allen Ford says

    Mitchell,

    Well, that’s it then. Go straight to junkscience.com and claim your just reward.

    Congratulations!

  11. Ender says

    Allen Ford – “Well, that’s it then. Go straight to junkscience.com and claim your just reward.”

    Have you read the rules of the reward? Any climate scientist could claim it however it is totally at the discretion of JunkScience to accept the explanation therefore the challenge is nothing.

  13. Ender says

    Allen Ford – “Can anybody explain to me how such an insignificant quantity of a gaseous substance can possible heat up the entire column of air?””

    The answer it that it doesn’t do it all alone. Water Vapour does the bulk of it and CO2 contributes anywhere from 30% to 10% of the warming along with other greenhouse gases.

    Also the CO2 does not heat anything itself. It simply traps some of the enormous amount of energy that is radiated from the Earth after it is heated by the Sun.

    Toxicology is relevant because your sole claim, in the calculations you made, is that simply because an element is present in small quantities it cannot be significant. SJT provided an example where an element in tiny quantities has a profound effect. There are many many examples in Nature where small concentrations of one element can leverage another system to provide an out of proportion effect.

  14. mitchell porter says

    Allen, all I did was explain how gases which by mass are a small fraction of the atmosphere can nonetheless be the conduit for all of the warming. Milloy’s award pertains to AGW and the economics of mitigation. If the UN is right then yes, someone should be able to win the prize just by reproducing IPCC arguments, but there are many more steps required which I, at least, cannot yet personally reproduce. The prediction of catastrophic AGW, for example, doesn’t just involve the increase in temperature directly arising from having extra CO2, it also includes positive feedbacks whose magnitude is supposed to be at least twice that of the direct increase.
    http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-david-evans-is-wrong-along-with-all.html

    And then the economics of it is going to be even more difficult to demonstrate. At least, I don’t know of a comparably simple statement of the argument. (Stern’s calculation got a lot of press but as it was such a recent development, the economic impact of Kyoto must have been discussed in 1997 or 1992 in some other way.) Nonetheless, I seem to be learning incrementally, and the competition remains open for another year. So, who knows? 🙂

  15. Luke says

    Allen – totally disingenous – the reward states they only pay if they like it (= never), no correspondence entered into. Come on now – now really. If the temperature went up linearly for the next 20 years you guys would say it’s something else. Anyone can put up something like that. Of more interest is the very few denialists who have accepted a fair bet with James Annan.

    As for the “teensy weensy” CO2 argument – utterly non-scientific an simply the old “appeal to ridicule” ruse – indeed there has been a very good experiment to measure the increase in downward longwave flux.

    The one thing that is utterly certain is that the contrarians in the above letter have failed miserably over the years to distinguish themselves in this debate. And so their efforts are now simply ignored.

    They may wish to consider their communication style if they have something serious to say.

    Indeed if they do seriously believe their viewpoint, it is encumbent upon them to detail a non-emotional non-political science based case as to why alternative explanations do work and why current science is wrong.

    This is not with hand waving and x-y plots either.

    They also need to abandon the “secret society” and “mafiaso” style and become much more open and inclusive. For example CSIRO and BoM invited to each Lavoisier meeting and so on … but that’s not gonna happen is it.

  16. Paul Williams says

    “If the temperature went up linearly for the next 20 years you guys would say it’s something else.”

    Not necessarily. Depends if there was another explanation except CO2. If temps do go up linearly, and it’s a verifiable rise, and there’s no other explanation, then AGW starts to look more likely. Let’s see what happens.

    “They also need to abandon the “secret society” and “mafiaso” style and become much more open and inclusive. For example CSIRO and BoM invited to each Lavoisier meeting and so on … but that’s not gonna happen is it.”

    I suppose they could hold a press conference at a big climate Change meeting. Do you think that would work?

  19. Ian Mott says

    If total atmospheric volume is 5,300,000,000Gt then 1ppm is 5,300Gt and the current 380ppm would mean total CO2 is only 2,000,000Gt, not 3,000,000Gt. But the question raised by Allen is just as valid.