Australia unlikely to sign Kyoto by Bali: analysts

Australia's new government is unlikely to sign the Kyoto pact in time for a UN climate summit in Bali, but will be welcomed next week as part of the Kyoto family, environment and legal experts said.

Labour Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd hopes parliament will ratify the Kyoto Protocol as soon as possible and is seeking advice on whether he can hand documents to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the Bali summit.

The United Nations hopes the two-week talks in Bali that begin on Monday will lead to an agreement to launch a two-year dialogue to decide on a successor to Kyoto, whose first phase ends in 2012.

"There are a range of ways in which the ratification process can be transacted and I'm seeking further advice on that now," Rudd said. Foreign ministry sources, who would not be named, said the handover could happen in Bali on December 13.

Outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, whose 11-year government was demolished by Rudd's Labor party at weekend elections, strongly opposed ratification of Kyoto, arguing it would unfairly damage Australia's energy-export based economy and cost jobs.

Australia negotiated hard at Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 for the most generous deal given to any major industrialised nation, winning an increase of eight percent above 1990 greenhouse emission levels against a 5 percent average cut for other countries.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change this month said Australia's greenhouse emissions in 2005 were about 25.6 per cent above 1990 levels, falling to a rise of 4.5 per cent when counting the impact of land-clearing bans.

That put Australia, the world's biggest greenhouse emitter in per-capita terms, on track to meet its Kyoto target.