With Australia having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S is now the only industrialized nation outside of the Kyoto framework and the call from Bali is that the U.S needs to play a stronger role in addressing the issue.
The call came from the climate change talks being held in Bali which commenced last week.In his first international address as Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Kevin Rudd today spoke at the climate change conference being held in Bali warning against inaction on climate change. According to the report by ABC News, 'embedded in his speech was a push for the US to play a stronger role in addressing global warming'.
Australia last week announced that it was ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, a much welcomed move. Australia and the United States of America were the two remaining industrialized nations that did not ratify the Protocol despite being among the major emitters of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Australia, under the John Howard government, had refused to ratify the agreement. However, Prime Minister Rudd, following his election victory last month, announced his government's intention to ratify the Protocol, which he did and today, he presented the official documents before taking the stage.
Backing up Prime Minister Rudd's call, Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has told the gathering that 'a post-Kyoto agreement must include the United States'.
"And we must ensure that the United States of America as the world's biggest economy, world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gas and the world leader in technology is part of such post 2012 arrangement ... because otherwise we will not be able to effectively address the climate change issue," the report quotes President Yudhoyono as saying.
The secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has told world leaders that they must not leave Bali without a climate breakthrough, saying that countries must act now, if the catastrophic impacts of climate change are to be avoided.
"If we leave Bali without such a breakthrough we will not only have failed our leaders but those who look to us to find solutions namely the peoples of the world," he said.