Global warming row enters Australian elections

The front runner in this weekend’s Australian general election put climate charge firmly at the top of his agenda today.

In his last major address of the six-week campaign, Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd accused Prime Minister John Howard’s 11-year-old government of being tired, out-of-touch and ill-equipped to cope with a new generation of issues like global warming and high-speed internet access.

Australia, under Mr Howard, was one of the countries along with the US which failed to sign up to the 1997 Kyoto protocol aimed at limiting carbon dioxide emissions.

“Saturday will decide whether Australia gets stuck in the world’s slow lane, letting other nations pass us by, or whether Australia decides to shift up a gear so we can properly realize our true potential as a nation,” Mr Rudd said in a speech to the National Press Club.

Mr Rudd said he would immediately reverse Mr Howard’s refusal to accept Australia’s targets set out in the Kyoto Treaty.

He said he would personally represent Australia at the UN climate change meeting next month in Bali to map out the next stage of the international fight against global warming.

“That’s number one,” Mr Rudd said during a question-and-answer session after his nationally televised address.

Mr Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat, also promised to have in place by next year a national target for renewable energy sources – such as wind and solar – providing 20% of Australia’s energy needs by 2020.

Mr Howard, 68, argues that the 50-year-old Mr Rudd is too inexperienced and cannot be trusted to run the economy well.

He used a speech yesterday to warn against Australia signing up to carbon reduction targets if developing countries such as China and India do not.

Of his own priorities over the next year, Mr Howard said: “The first and most important has to be to keep our economy growing and to push unemployment down even further.”

Mr Rudd said Mr Howard had failed to invest in fighting climate change and the nation’s worsening water shortage.

Australia, the world’s driest continent after Antarctica, is experiencing its worst drought in a century. All major cities have drinking water shortages.

Opinion polls have long given Mr Rudd a clear lead over Mr Howard nationally, but the race may be tighter than broad polling suggests because the result will likely hang on what happens in a few closely held districts.

In his speech, Mr Rudd reiterated his plans for an “education revolution” in schools and universities, and for nationwide high-speed internet connections.

He promised to wind back Mr Howard’s unpopular labour law reforms – but to steer a conservative course on economic management.

Mr Howard, Australia’s second-longest serving leader, has based his campaign for a fifth term around his government’s economic management, which has capitalised on booming demand from China and India for Australia’s coal and other minerals.

Australia is in an unprecedented 17th year of continuous economic growth, and unemployment is at a 33-year low.

But Mr Howard’s economic credentials have been dented among mortgage payers by six interest rate raises since the last election in 2004, and Mr Rudd accuses him of squandering the benefits of the boom on tax cuts instead of infrastructure investments.