Oz urged for climate change agreement

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Melbourne: UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former US vice-president Al Gore have strongly urged Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd to publicly back a tough global climate change agreement in the backdrop of growing domestic pressure for not following world on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The two leaders reportedly called up Rudd over the weekend after the head of nation's peak mining industry body attacked Australian banks including NAB and Westpac seeking Australia to follow the deep and unilateral greenhouse emission reductions, 'The Australian' report said.

Australian Workers Union leader Paul Howes accused the banks of being hypocritical and dishonest on the issue, and said they stood to reap all the benefits of a new carbon market without suffering any pains.

The Australian Industry Group, which represents the manufacturing sector, is urging the Rudd government to rethink even modest plans because of the global financial crisis -either starting its scheme as a "dry run" until the economic situation improves, or delaying the proposed 2010 start date.

The conflicting pressures centre on the size of the emission cuts to be announced when the government unveils its scheme on Monday, and the extent to which they are contingent on the success of an international deal at next year's crucial UN summit meeting in Copenhagen.

The government is understood to have decided to leave open the possibility of cutting domestic emissions by 25 per cent by 2020, but only as part of an ambitious and comprehensive international agreement including commitments from India and China, with domestic cuts of between 5 and 15 per cent by 2020 in the event of less successful international deals.

Brown, Gore, conservationists and sections of the business community have been lobbying the government to leave the 25 per cent target on the table, and to announce it at the preparatory UN talks now under way in Poznan, Poland, to help give the negotiations momentum. The government has so far declined to make a public announcement at Poznan.

Mounting to the pressure, European NGOs has ranked Australia below almost all developed countries and even below Russia in terms of its climate-protection performance.

On a table of the 57 largest CO2 emitting nations, Australia was ranked sixth worst, ahead of only Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, the US, Canada and Saudi Arabia.