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"Kevin Anderson 'Rhetoric to Reality'"

"Giles Parkinson First, the good news. Australia will, as expected, comfortably meet its Kyoto emission reduction target, and won't get into trouble with the international community when its report card is due at the end of 2012. Even though emissions from the electricity sector will have grown by 51 per cent from 1990 through to 2012, the last-minute deal negotiated at Kyoto by Senator Robert Hill - which allowed Australia to claim reduction of land clearing after levelling half of Queensland just before the baseline year - means it will deliver on its generous national quota of 108 per cent of its 1990 emissions. It will likely come in at just over 106 per cent, and will no doubt give itself a gold star for doing so. Now, the bad news. The task of meeting Australia's pledge to the Copenhagen Accord has just gotten a lot harder. The government's latest emissions trajectory report reveals emissions growth shows little sign of abating in the short term, and may accelerate because of the impact of the massive LNG projects off the north-west of the country and increased coal exports."