Posted on 11/14/2006 8:34:17 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia has hit back at France over its threat to impose a tax on industrial goods from countries that ignore the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
Prime Minister John Howard described the plan as "silly", while the mass-circulation Daily Telegraph headlined its report: "Back off, Frogs".
Running across a picture of a French nuclear bomb explosion in the Pacific in 1971, a subheading read: "The French did this to our backyard and they have de Gaulle to attack us on Kyoto."
Australia, like the United States, has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on reducing the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Howard's conservative government says compliance would harm the economy and complains that the pact fails to impose similar curbs on pollution by major developing countries such as China and India.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Monday he would push with European partners for a carbon tax on industrial goods from countries that ignore the Kyoto Protocol.
"That is a thoroughly silly proposal and utterly out of touch with reality," Howard told reporters.
"Mind you, (Villepin) does come from a country that is known for imposing high trade barriers against other countries like Australia."
The Kyoto protocol requires industrialised countries to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent by 2008-2012 compared with their 1990 levels.
UN-sponsored talks are underway in Nairobi to reshape the agreement for the period after 2012 and include rapidly developing economies not bound by the original text.
Villepin said France would present EU members with concrete proposals in the first quarter of 2007 to tax industrial imports from countries that snub Kyoto Protocol requirements after 2012.
"Europe must use all its weight" to counter "environmental dumping", he said.
Despite his dismissive comments and a continuing refusal to ratify Kyoto, Howard has recently signalled a major policy shift as Canberra scrambles to counter criticism of its environmental policy.
He has proposed a "new Kyoto" and said Tuesday he would back launching an international carbon trading scheme to fight global warming when he meets leaders at this weekend's APEC summit in Vietnam.
Carbon trading is the centrepiece of the Kyoto pact, which proposes a system under which rich countries are allotted caps for their pollution but which only Europe has begun embracing.
If countries come in under target they can sell any surplus to partners who are above their emissions goal.
ROFL AD LOL!
The Frogman is really have to dig in an attempt to be relevant in today's world. He needs to get a handle on all the cars burning in his country adding to the pollution. If not, there won't be a France to worry about Kyoto.....think the muslims will care? lol
I don't see the big deal with this.
Australia has the right to decide what treaties it would like to sign.
France has the right to impose any tarriffs on any imports it wants.
Australia has the right to be pissed off about it.
Why is this news? Sounds like par for the course in international affairs to me.
I'm with you. Looks like France is willing to kick off an international trade war with Australia imposing a retailiatory tariff on French products for being obnoxious.
(Or was that a whine and cheese party?)
carbon credits = fiat money. get it?
yep, more opportunities for hidden payoffs inside the EU.
It's all about $$$$.........period.
EVERY country is ignoring Kyoto.
it is, business as usual, EVERYWHERE
nobody has done anything.
the European carbon trading sham, is a sham.
To: NormsRevenge
Yeah, back off frogs. The Kyoto agreement is one of the dumbest things to occur in the 90s. A bunch of left-wing socialists who know almost nothing about climate science burn thousands of gallons of jet fuel to get together for a big wine and cheese party in Kyoto. What a waste of time.
(Or was that a whine and cheese party?)
Absolutely perfect way of saying what we are thinking, and what comes from the heart. Norm said it, "GO Aussies"
"Back off, Frogs"
I love it!
The origin of calling the French Frogs might have come from the insignia of the French monarchy before they replaced the three frogs with three fleur de lis. Three frogs mean a really major frog, which is a symbol for agricultural land and was the source of the slogan of the King that all wealth comes from the land, which it did and may again some day.
I always thought that we call them “frogs” is because both France and frog begin with “fr.” In French, “frog” is grenhouille.
That was the explanation we were using last year. During the Crusades they were Franks. Swallow the n like they do and there it is.
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