What was he referring to?

The Australian Proposal is an idea, first mooted — and still championed — by Australia, to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a series of national “schedules”.

In these schedules, countries record climate action plans and agree to be legally bound by what they (themselves) suggest.

For the industrialised world, the Proposal has an intoxicating allure.

It abandons the principal tenets of the Kyoto architecture — that there is a fundamental difference between developed and developing countries — and instead applies the framework of “Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions and Commitments” to everyone.

It also opens other core elements of Kyoto, like targets, to renegotiation.

For instance, a discussion draft submitted to the UNFCCC in May offered the following clarification: “The objective of this Agreement is to achieve an environmentally sound response to climate change...through unified long-term action that sets the world on a path to peak global emissions by [X] and then reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by [X] per cent by [X] on [X] levels...”

Speaking before the New York University School of Law in September, Australia’s Climate Minister, Penny Wong said, “In putting Australia’s Proposal forward, we are seeking once again to help find common ground where it has thus far eluded us.”

And later: “The design [of an agreement] itself can influence the level of ambition of the agreement, because the design will influence the level of confidence the Parties have.”

In fact, the entire premise of the Australian proposal is neatly packed in the second statement.

Australia contends that countries will only sign an agreement in earnest if it’s flexible enough not to impose commitments they don’t like.

This matters because an agreement will only be durable if countries sign on earnestly. In turn, confidence in the enduring cachet of an agreement is the only thing that — in this hour of global crisis — will bring countries to the negotiating table, ready to make concessions.

Thus, according to the Australian logic: if we want countries to agree to do more, we have to require them do less. Quod erat demonstratum.

Strangely, few critiques of the Australian proposal have surfaced in the media, despite the twisted logic. In the run-up to Copenhagen, at least three issues need to come under intense scrutiny.
 
First, the Australian Proposal jettisons the principle of historical responsibility; the May discussion draft doesn’t so much as contain the word “historical”.

It also sterilises the principle of common but differentiated responsibility by extending it to an absurd limit: every country is unique, so we must reject legally binding distinctions like Annex I and Non-Annex I countries.

Notably, although the Proposal doesn’t say that countries like India, China or Brazil should take on targets, it also forbears to say they shouldn’t.

Second, the Proposal suggests building an international agreement by collating national proposals into an Annex.

From the May discussion draft: “Countries would put forward draft national schedules as part of the negotiation process. This would provide an opportunity for transparent assessment of the comparability of effort and comment on the draft schedules.” [emphasis added]

The idea that science should determine the global level of effort while principles of equity and responsibility should determine its distribution is nowhere to be seen. Instead, following—or perhaps leading—the US example, domestic laws are allowed to set the global agenda.

Third, the very notion — without any guiding principles of equity or fairness — that a free-for-all negotiation among two hundred countries will yield fair results, beggars belief. Jairam Ramesh’s leaked letter to the Prime Minister (suggestsing that India could obtain a security council seat by softening its climate position) hints at the kind of horse-trading that could ensue.

Ever sanguine, Minister Wong offered the following salve in her speech: “For developing countries, taking on international mitigation obligations for the first time is a big deal—but the flexibilities in schedules are designed to give them greater comfort.”

If “developing” were replaced by “developed”, that statement would actually be quite perspicacious — much like the Minister’s closing remark: “Naturally, even the perfect design can only take us so far. The level of ambition [of the next agreement] will ultimately be determined by the political will of the Parties.”