CANBERRA: Australia needs to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and slash its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60 percent by 2050 to help fight global warming, the British economist Nicholas Stern said Wednesday.

The former chief economist of the World Bank said that the cost of inaction could be catastrophic, but that rich countries were recognizing the problem of global warming, with firm emissions targets now set by Britain, France, California and the European Union.

Australia, along with the United States, has refused to ratify the Kyoto pact, which sets goals for lowering the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warning. It has refused to impose binding targets on carbon emissions.

Australia should "set a target for reductions by 2050 of at least 60 percent as part of a rich world responsibility," Stern told the National Press Club.

Canberra's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol had held up international collaboration on climate change, he said.

But Prime Minister John Howard told Parliament on Wednesday that he refused to set any binding greenhouse targets that would hurt the Australian economy or its position as the world's second largest exporter of thermal coal.

"I am simply not going to agree to proscriptions that are going to damage the future of the Australian economy," Howard said. "And I'm not going to agree to proscriptions that are going to cost the jobs of Australian coal miners."

If Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, Howard said, the country would be put at a competitive disadvantage compared to countries which lacked a strong resources sector.

During his visit to Australia, Stern has met with Howard and the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, who has promised to ratify Kyoto if he wins elections, which are scheduled for later this year. After six years of drought and with water shortages in the country's major cities, climate change is shaping up as a key election issue.

Stern said rich nations needed to commit to curb greenhouse emissions by between 60 percent and 90 percent by 2050, with many countries starting to recognize the need for urgent action.

California has set an 80 percent reduction target by 2050, Britain has agreed to cut its emissions by at least 60 percent and the European Union will cut emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020.

In a far-ranging report last year, Stern said that stabilizing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would cost about 1 percent of global output by 2050, but failure to act could cost 20 times that.

By Reuters. Published March 28, 2007 on International Herald Tribune