National governments protect their citizens' interests in many ways. They negotiate trade deals to get better overseas market access, raise loans at the best interest rate and aggressively promote their countries' merits as tourist destinations.
This same pursuit of citizens' interests is equally evident within federal systems like Australia's.
Bitter disputes take place each year at premiers' conferences about each state's contribution to and share of the national cake.
However, uniquely among the world's nations, the Australian Government's approach to international climate change negotiations has jettisoned this conventional approach.
India and China are engaged in endless negotiations and posturing over their carbon dioxide emissions. They say they may contemplate measures that reduce those emissions if they get copious amounts of compensation from the developed countries.
The US is stalling while making pious noises.
The European Union has placed a cap on its carbon emissions policy but carefully shields its companies from any detrimental effects.
By contrast, the Rudd Government wants Australia to implement job-sapping and business-bashing carbon emission reduction policies no matter what other countries do. Moreover, the Government's proposed emission reduction policies entail us buying emission rights from overseas -- by mid-century at a cost of $26 billion a year, more than Australia now earns from its meat, grain and other food exports.
And whatever their domestic impact, these measures will have a zero effect on overall global emission levels, even in the unlikely event that there is a global agreement.
Australian CO2 emission levels are relatively high, partly because our low-cost coal provides economical electricity allowing us to export energy-intensive goods like aluminium. Importing countries are therefore outsourcing carbon emissions to us.
Nonetheless, the Government fails to explain why we have high emissions, preferring to wear them as a badge of shame.
Nor does it advertise that Australia's vast land mass also absorbs carbon dioxide. Based on CSIRO estimates, Australian soils absorb 138 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That's a fair chunk of the 330 tonnes of yearly emissions by our households, producers and transport vehicles.
Much of the motive for the Australian Government's apparent unconcern about the national interest stems from its wish to obtain international credits for other goals.
It hopes to use these credits to further its aspirations for Australia to obtain a seat on the United Nations Security Council and, perhaps, to promote Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's ambition to become secretary-general of that body.
After all, former New Zealand PM Helen Clark has a gig as head of the UN development program. So the top job in the world body cannot be beyond the reach of a Chinese-speaking Australian PM.
A step on the way to this may be Mr Rudd's invitation to become a "friend of the chair" of next month's Copenhagen climate change conference.
Some Australians would be pleased to see their country as a member of the UN Security Council and would be thrilled to see their PM as UN secretary-general.
However, few would think it worth sacrificing jobs and living standards to promote those goals.
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