Gov't must work with Greens for safe climate; Libs chaos matches climate chaos

The chaos in the Liberal Party and the warnings of 4C warming by 2060 if a weak agreement is reached in Copenhagen send a clear signal to the Rudd Government: work with the Australian Greens towards a safe climate outcome.

"The Rudd Government faces a clear choice between two cynical political wedges and meaningful climate action," Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.

"The Government seems to be focussed on choosing whether it prefers to wedge Malcolm Turnbull by forcing him to agree to its appalling scheme as it stands or wedge him by browning down the scheme even further.

"But the stark reality is that both of those options condemn Australia, our region and the planet to a future that none of us want to live in.

"The only safe and sensible approach, the only approach the Prime Minister could take if he wants to look his grandchildren in the eye, is to work with the Greens towards an environmentally effective and economically efficient emissions trading scheme.

"The Greens provide 5 solid Senate votes, and the Government can find the remaining two from the cross-bench or the increasingly fractured Opposition.

"Let's not forget that it is the Government that holds the key here, not the Liberal Party.

"If the Government chooses to reach a deal with the Opposition, it will do so. If it chooses to go to an early election, it will do so. If it chooses to take meaningful action to avert climate crisis, it will also do so."

Senator Milne welcomed the growing chorus of voices joining the Greens in saying that a weak deal is worse than no deal at all as it will lock in failure.

Last week, Sir David King and Lord Stern told the Financial Times that it would be far better that no global climate deal is reached this year than that we get a weak deal that locks in climate failure.

Now, the Global Humanitarian Forum meeting in Geneva, involving Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson, Rajendra Pachauri, James Wolfensohn and many other global luminaries, has come to the same conclusion.

The GHF concluded that:

"No deal is better than a bad deal": it would be more constructive to avoid conclusion at the 2009 UN Climate Conference at Copenhagen of any climate change agreement that would not provide for basic levels of safety, equity and predictability."