Australia and Climate Change Diplomacy: Towards a Post-2012 Regime - Policy Proposals on Australia's Climate Change Diplomacy

Abstract

A workshop on Australia and Climate Change Diplomacy: Towards a Post-Kyoto Regime (the Workshop) was held at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales on 22-23 November 2007. The purpose of the Workshop was to evaluate Australia's past and current climate change diplomacy and to make policy recommendations for the future. The interdisciplinary Workshop brought together 19 leading experts in economics, science, international relations, law, and business. The majority were academics, but the group also included private consultants and NGO representatives from Australia with one visitor from China. The Workshop was organised and hosted by Associate Professor Rosemary Rayfuse (Law) and Associate Professor Shirley Scott (Politics and International Studies) and financial support was provided by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Faculties of Law and Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW. The Workshop was held, under circumstances of uncertainty, two weeks prior to the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol to be held in Bali, Indonesia, from 3-14 December. This summit will set the stage for a comprehensive agreement that tackles climate change on all fronts following the expiry of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. The Workshop was also held immediately preceding the Australian federal election. Climate change was a significant issue during the election campaign and the incoming Rudd Government has committed itself to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.