Sydney - Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Friday reiterated his opposition to targets for cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Speaking to reporters after meeting with state government leaders in Canberra, Howard said he had rejected a call to set a target of reducing Australia's emissions by 60 per cent.
"We were unwilling, for reasons I have stated publicly, to commit to a particular target because of the possible consequences of that on the economy," the prime minister said.
The Howard government has come under pressure to join every other developed country other than the United States and sign the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change.
As well as giving signatories legally binding targets for reducing emissions, Kyoto provides for a carbon emissions trading system among signatories.
Until this year Howard was scathing even of the notion of global warming and against any global initiative to introduce carbon trading.
The worst drought on record and a plethora of scientific reports detailing the possible impact of climate change has made him a late convert to the idea that something should be done to check greenhouse gases.
But Howard maintains that joining any international scheme to abate climate change would disproportionately affect Australia because it's the world's biggest coal exporter and relies on coal for over 80 per cent of electricity generation.
He rejects Kyoto because it doesn't include China, India and other developing countries in the first-round effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Howard said he would fund a Climate Change Adaptation Centre in Canberra to help prepare the country for warmer weather, less rainfall and rising sea levels.
Greenpeace climate change campaigner Ben Pearson said it was ridiculous to spend money on the study of global warming but then do nothing about it.
"If we don't reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions there is no way we are going to be able to adapt to climate change," Pearson said. "The time is not for more study, the time is for action."
