[Greens-Media] Wong's Howard game at climate talks will send voters to the Greens

[Hollo, Tim (Sen C. Milne)]

Wong's Howard game at climate talks will send voters to the Greens

Hobart, Wednesday 10 December 2008

The electorate will not forgive the Rudd Government for holding back
global progress towards responsible emissions reductions, the Australian
Greens today.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is taking the Howard Government's
negotiating tactics to the Poznan meeting, adopting the same positions
and even flying the same negotiators, led by Jan Adams and Robert Owen
Jones, to the conference. The Greens now provide the only real
alternative for voters who want to see action to protect the climate.

"Australians who voted last year to end the Howard decade of climate
denial will be deeply troubled by what the Rudd Government is doing,"
Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate Change Spokesperson, Senator
Christine Milne, said.

"As Minister Wong prepares to deliver plans for Australia which will
refuse to grapple seriously with the problem, she is laying the
groundwork in Poznan by help to hold back global progress.

"The clear reports from Poznan are that Australia is still blocking the
25-40% negotiating range in order to justify what it plans to do next
week.

"There is no way that Penny Wong will allow the rest of the world to
show up Australia's backwardness by adopting a 25-40% negotiating range.

"Nobody should be in any doubt that the Rudd Government is intent on
trying to save its own image at the expense of people and ecosystems
from the poverty-stricken in Bangladesh to Queensland's coastal
communities to farmers in the Murray-Darling."

Australia won runner up "Fossil of the Day" award from the Climate
Action Network yesterday for supporting Japan's move to shift the agreed
emissions baseline from 1990 to 2000.

The Rudd Government is also playing a dangerous game over forestry
negotiations.

"The hypocrisy of continuing to log our own tremendous carbon stores in
Tasmania and Victoria while lecturing Indonesia and PNG on protecting
their own forests is beginning to provoke angry responses.

"It is utterly reprehensible that the Rudd Government will not take on
the State Governments and require them to stop logging these magnificent
stores of carbon and biodiversity that are our beautiful forests.

"Australians voted 12 months ago to move on from Howard-era climate
politics, and they will be deeply troubled to see that very little has
changed under Kevin Rudd."

Tim Hollo 
Media and Communications Adviser 
Senator Christine Milne 
Australian Greens Deputy Leader
ph: (02) 6277 3588 
mob: 0437 587 562
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