The Australian Position at the Kyoto Conference

On 28 April 1997 on ABC Radio National, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, stated publicly that he believed that Australia should never have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). This was the culmination of over a year of backpedaling by the Australian Liberal-National Party Government on the issue of climate change due to purported negative economic impacts. Climate change has been a difficult issue for Australia in international circles, in particular, because Australia has been viewed in the past as an exemplary international environmental citizen. From the 1970s onwards, Australia made significant contributions to protection of the global environment, including in the areas of nature conservation, whaling, ozone layer protection and conservation of Antarctica. Australia’s current stance on climate change is a radical departure.