EU condemns Australia's climate attitude

The European Union has accused Australia of having a negative attitude on international negotiations about climate change.
Speaking at the meeting of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has also condemned Australia for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds of politics rather than economics.
"I can really not understand why Australia has not ratified Kyoto," Mr Dimas said.
"If you ratify Kyoto, it will cost you one-third of what it costs you now... it's purely political."
The 400-member IPCC is due to issue a 1,400-page report on the impacts of climate change this Friday.
The document, obtained by the ABC's The 7.30 Report, says Australia's average coastline temperature could rise by up to 3.4 degrees by 2050 and by more than 6 degrees by 2080.
It also predicts widespread bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, more frequent fires, droughts, floods and storms, and a further dwindling of stream flows in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Mr Dimas has also laid into the US, the only other major industrialised countries to reject the UN's emissions-cutting Kyoto pact.
He says the US is the "number-one emitter" of fossil-fuel pollution in the world.
"Its own approach doesn't help in reaching international agreement," he said.
The Kyoto Protocol is the only international agreement to set a target of reducing carbon pollution.
But the treaty has been almost crippled by the absence of the US, which abandoned the treaty in March 2001 in one of President George W Bush's first acts in office.
Mr Bush said the US commitments under Kyoto were too costly for the US economy.
He also said the accord was unfair, as only industrialised countries, not large developing countries like China and India, are required to make targeted emissions cuts.
Australia is similarly pushing for bilateral, regional and technical cooperation for tackling climate change.
Kyoto's supporters have long suspected that this approach aims at weakening support for the treaty, for which renegotiation is coming up.
- AFP
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