Australia's Ratification of the  Kyoto Protocol Makes the Times. (December 4, 2007)

Both The Times (London) and The New York Times reported the news that Kevin Rudd inaugurated his prime ministership by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

The Times wrote:

Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party leader elected by a landslide victory last week, overturned his predecessor's opposition to binding emissions cuts.

Delegates at a UN-sponsored conference on a successor to Kyoto, which began in Bali yesterday, greeted the announcement that Australia would become the 37th industrial nation to become a full Kyoto member before the end of March with a minute’s applause. However, Mr Rudd struck a downbeat note on whether Australia was likely to reach its target of restricting greenhouse gas emissions to 8 per cent above 1990 levels during 2008-12. “We are currently likely to . . . overshoot our Kyoto target by 1 per cent,” he told ABC Radio.

Mr Rudd’s decision to ratify the deal came as a report suggested that Australia could be carbon neutral by 2050 and still triple the size of its economy. The report, from the independent Climate Institute, the national science agency CSIRO and Monash University, is in line with a conclusion of Sir Nicholas Stern’s review last year that doing nothing about climate change would have a far greater cost on the economy than acting on it.

The New York Times relied on the Associated Press coverage which sited the Prime Minister's statement:

"This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change," Rudd said in a statement issued hours after he and his Cabinet were officially sworn in after Nov. 24 elections.

Rudd said that he had signed the "instrument of ratification" of the Kyoto Protocol and that it would come into force 90 days after the paperwork was received by the United Nations.

"Australia will become a full member of the Kyoto Protocol before the end of March 2008," Rudd said.

"Australia's official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country's efforts to fight climate change domestically and with the international community," he said.

Mr Rudd, in what could be seen as a swipe at protestations made by the out going Coalition government that Australia was exceeding Kyoto requirements regardless of the fact that it hadn't ratified the protocol, told ABC Radio yesterday that Australia was unlikely to reach the target of restricting greenhouse gas emissions to 8% above 1990 levels during 2008-12. "We are currently likely to . . . overshoot our Kyoto target by 1%."

The Prime Minister will fly to Bali next week to attend the conference on climate change accompanied by Treasurer Wayne Swan, Penny Wong, the Climate Change Minister; and Environment Minister, Peter Garrett