In a development expected for months, Australia's Labor Party won the national parliamentary elections and will install Kevin Rudd as the new Prime Minister. Rudd has been vocal about getting Australia into a much higher gear in dealing with climate change. Here's the story from AP: Rudd makes global warming a priority. Labor has ambitious plans for Climate Change & Environment, including a 20% renewable energy standard by 2020. The likely new environment minister will be Peter Garrett, the frontman of the activist band Midnight Oil.
I wrote about Australia's retrograde stance under outgoing PM John Howard at my post, APEC, in September. It seems to me highly significant that Kevin Rudd is also a China specialist, having served in Beijing as an Australian diplomat, and speaks the language, and will therefore be positioned to help bring China along in the next few years on what it needs to do to address climate change. Good on ya, Kevin!