Environmentalism is now political

The year 2004 may be remembered as the year that environmentalism became accepted as a political reality rather than as an ecological imperative.

The single most significant global environmental event was probably Russia's ratification of the Kyoto protocol.  Ratification on 23rd October pushed the 126-nation United Nations accord, aimed at reducing global warming, over the threshold of 55 per cent of developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions needed to make it internationally binding.

"We'll toast the Duma with vodka tonight", Greenpeace climate policy adviser Steve Sawyer said in a statement ahead of the expected vote in favour of the pact.

But Russia all the while was making it clear, including to Greenpeace, that it didn't much believe in Kyoto as something that would help the environment.

Rather, Moscow ratified the protocol in exchange for European Union agreement on the terms of Moscow's admission to the World Trade Organisation.

Dr Andrei Illarionov, chief economic advisor to the Russian President, said:  "Nobody amongst Russian decision makers considers the Kyoto protocol either scientifically proven or economically beneficial for the country.  The only reasons for Russia's decision to ratify were purely political".

Some significant decisions were made in Australia over the last year purportedly for the environment.

In March and April state governments banned genetically modified (GM) food crops.  Cotton was exempt from the legislation on the basis it is grown primarily for fibre as opposed to food.

This decision conveniently sidestepped the fact that about 35 per cent of the vegetable oil we consume in Australia is from cottonseed oil from GM cotton plants.

Also in March an interim report from the House of Representative's Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was handed down recommending that the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council postpone plans to commit an additional 500 gigalitres in increased flows to the Murray River.

In June the Council of Australian of Governments (COAG) signed off on the National Water Initiative (NWI) including a commitment of up to 500 gigalitres for the Murray River.

The signing of the NWI was potentially a turning point for the management of water in Australia.  Importantly at last here was a formal and national commitment to tradable water entitlements and a commitment to address over-allocation of groundwater.

The federal election dominated national environmental politics during the second half of 2004.

The Coalition waited until the election campaign to reveal that funding for the NWI would come from competition payments to the States.  The State Governments retaliated by suspending their involvement in the NWI.  It won't be until next year that the outcome from this maneuvering is resolved.

In August environmental organisations including Greenpeace announced a three pronged policy for the federal election:  returning of even more water to the Murray, stopping climate change and ending logging of old growth forests in Tasmania.  It was the last issue that came to dominate election politics and helped lose the federal election for Labor.

Both Labor and the Coalition knew that the "largest remaining tract of pristine, old growth, tall-eucalypt forest" had been saved more than once.  But they nevertheless sought to out-compete each other with promises of how much more "last remaining" tract of old growth forest could be saved.

That was until the Prime Minister realised he just couldn't outbid the Labor Party on the Tasmanian forestry issue.  The Labor proposal was just too audacious, so the Prime Minister changed tack completely.  The rest is history.

So the Kyoto Protocol will come into affect in 2005, hopefully along with the NWI.

Tassie foresters have survived to fight another day, but the future is less clear for new GM food crops on mainland Australia.

These were some of the big environmental issues for 2004 with present outcomes determined on the basis of environmental campaigning and political maneuvering rather than sound social, economic or environmental principles.

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