The European Union, with support from some G77s, has sought to cap or limit the extent to which emissions trading and the clean development mechanism can be used to achieve targets. They argue that the United States will avoid substantial emission reductions at home by purchasing Russian emission credits arising from the collapse of the Russian economy. Let me turn to sinks, briefly. We have experts in the room whom, I am sure, will want to expand on this later. However, in preliminary sparring, the EU and some G77s are trying to limit the extent to which sinks can be used to meet Kyoto targets.
Sinks are of critical importance to Australia.
The definition and rules to be adopted will impact on the size of our abatement task, as well as the cost. This will be a key issue for us at COP 6. Let me turn to compliance. The shape and nature of the protocols compliance system was an issue left undetermined at Kyoto. A compliance system is needed to help parties comply with their protocol emission abatement targets and to sanction those parties that fail to meet their targets.