Prime Minister Rudd’s address yesterday to the United Nations was remarkable both for the repeated and deserved applause for Australia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, but also for the candid way in which he declared that the costs of inaction would be far worse than the costs of action – for Australia and for the world. It was a stark reminder that action on climate change is in Australia’s national interest.

The political hotspot in the Bali negotiations is whether the final documents will provide explicit reference to science backed greenhouse pollution reduction targets to serve as a guide to the negotiations and analysis of national targets and developing country contributions over the next two years.

Australia’s position on these targets seem to have become almost hopelessly entangled in a net of domestic political considerations – “we can’t commit to these because we promised the Australian people that we would set our targets through the Garnaut process, and we can’t pre-empt that. And accept our assurances that we will be guided by the science as we set them.”

Quelling a decade conditioned sceptism of governmental claims, I actually believe that this is a Government clear in its mandate and intent for leadership on climate change. The Prime Minister has repeatedly referred to being driven by the science and repeatedly referred to a global target to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change of around 450 greenhouse pollutant parts per million.

Yesterday, the world’s leading scientists emphatically repeated their advice that global greenhouse pollution needs to peak and decline in the next commitment period to be determined in 2009. And from there global greenhouse pollution should promptly head towards at least 50% reduction by 2050 with developed countries targets all adding up to a reduction of their pollution of 25 – 40% by 2020.

Without guidance from the science backed targets for the negotiations we risk our national (and the planet’s) interests being compromised. The greatest risk is that in 2009 we arrive with a mass and mess of obligations which are unlikely to stack up to the targets and commitments the scientists tell us is necessary.

These science backed targets are in our national interest but what has been the Australian position on these here in Bali? There are numerous stories of the delegation opposing the introduction of these in the key documents. Why? Partly because of the domestic political concerns mentioned above, but also because there is a view that Australia shouldn’t be supporting a position they don’t believe will get up. This is a view directly expressed by at least two Government sources.

It’s a view based on an assessment of the positions of countries such as the US, Japan and Canada. It’s both a weak argument and an argument of weakness. Some of history’s greatest achievements, such as universal suffrage and the 40 hour week, were only wrought through repeated attempts, often against the odds.

But it’s also a view that grossly underestimates our newly burnished status of middle power influence in global politics and yet is so clearly against our national interest. It’s a view that we will regret should the 2009 talks arrive with a collection of targets and commitments, other than ours, poorly informed by the science.

It’s a view we will regret when history remembers that in Bali Australia effectively walked quietly past those developed and developing countries trying to build a bridge to a safer climate based on the twin foundations of a 2050 global target and a 2020 developed country target.

But it’s also a view that grossly underestimates our newly burnished status of middle power influence in global politics and yet so clearly against our national interest. It’s a view, if unchanged, that we will regret should the 2009 talks arrive with a collection of targets and commitments, other than ours, poorly informed by the science.

It’s a view that we will regret should history recount that in Bali Australia effectively walked quietly past those developed and developing countries trying to build a bridge to a safer climate based on the twin foundations of a 2050 global target and a 2020 developed country target.