Australia Sees Light on Kyoto

The Australian government's opposition to the Kyoto protocol on reducing greenouse gases was undermined last night by two official reports which said the economy would benefit from its ratification.

The government has refused to do so on the grounds that it would harm jobs and industry. But the reports for the Australian Greenhouse Office said that signing the agreement would be better for the economy.

They quickly began a war of words. The environment minister, David Kemp, said that environmentalists had manipulated the findings, and the shadow environment minister, Kelvin Thomson, accused the government of trying to bury the figures.

Australia is now one of the few big polluting states which refuses to sign the protocol. The prime minister, John Howard, ruled out ratification in June, but in recent months the government's stance has softened.

After examing how ratifying the protocol would affect the Australian economy, the agency reported that all policy options would result in a marginal slump in GDP, but in the short term the decline would be less dramatic if Australia implemented Kyoto.