SYDNEY (AFP) — Australians want their new government to do more than just sign up to the Kyoto Protocol with over 80 percent supporting a reversal in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, a survey released Friday showed.
Research conducted for the Climate Institute, an independent body established to promote awareness about global warming, found that environmental concerns were a key issue in last weekend's election.
Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd swept to power in a landslide after campaigning on the need for new leadership which would, among other things, ratify Kyoto, the UN's landmark international treaty on carbon emissions.
The survey, conducted in the days immediately after Saturday's election, found that climate change was among the issues which prompted previously loyal supporters of ousted prime minister John Howard to vote for Rudd.
Some 81 percent backed ratifying Kyoto, while 93 percent wanted the country to reverse its rising greenhouse pollution in five years.
Results from the overall survey of the 984 voters from marginal seats found support for ratification of Kyoto at 59 percent and reversing greenhouse pollution within five years at 86 percent.
"Kyoto ratification is a very important and welcome step but Australians are also hungry for more decisive action to reverse our own rising pollution within five years," Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said.
"And that means backing those countries which are focusing on avoiding more than two degrees global warming at Bali."
Rudd has promised to ratify Kyoto as his first priority and will travel to the Indonesian island of Bali for the UN conference on climate change to "work out where the planet goes in the future."
"Big agenda item, that," he told national radio Friday.
"We, as Australia under this new government, will be part of the action, we'll be part of the global negotiations, not pushed to one side because of the previous government's refusal to ratify Kyoto."
The European Union's ambassador to Australia, Bruno Julien, welcomed Australia's new position on Kyoto and said he hoped others would follow.
"We would have preferred to have Australia in the beginning, and the United States too, by the way," Bruno Julien said.
"But we greet this news and we are very happy to see that it's taken at the highest level because it ensures that negotiations in Bali will be at a very high level.
"But let's try to work together to convince the ones who are still not on board."
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