Sydney - Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday that he would accept targets for cutting Australia's greenhouse gases thrashed out in a global deal that would follow the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. Speaking in a televised debate with opposition Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, Howard also said that he would urge US President George W Bush to join him in accepting that firm national targets were necessary to curb climate change.
Australia and the US are the only developed countries not to have signed the 1997 protocol that commits 35 industrialized countries to meeting greenhouse gas emission-reduction targets.
Howard, who is behind in the polls in the run-up to November 24 general election, has overcome his objections to targets and is now prepared to accept them. Bush has not shifted ground and still recoils at the US being set a target for reducing emissions.
Earlier this year, Howard also changed tack and set out his plans for a national carbon-trading scheme.
Rudd has pledged to sign Kyoto and adopt a trading scheme, if Labor wins government. He has matched European counties and promised to commit to a 60-per-cent reduction in Australia's emissions by 2050.
Howard has yet to declare a target but said, if he won government, he would announce a target next year.
In the debate, which most observers say was narrowly won by Rudd, Howard kept up his criticism of Kyoto, saying it was unacceptable because rich countries were set targets but poor countries were given a free ride.
"At the moment, Kyoto doesn't effectively cover the United States and China - that's a bit like having an international world cup in cricket without Australia and India," the prime minister said.
Global warming has emerged as a key difference between Howard and Rudd at the start of the six-week election campaign.
