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Sydney: The scientist whom Prime Minister John Howard officially named as Australian of the year yesterday accepted the honour but immediately accused the government of dragging its heels on climate change.
Tim Flannery was awarded the title on the national holiday Australia Day, for his contribution to the country's understanding of environmental issues such as global warming.
Flannery said Howard was a major part of the problem because his government refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which caps carbon dioxide emissions for industrialised countries.
"There's no doubt this government has been dragging the chain," Flannery told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio yesterday. "I've said in the past that Australia has been the worst of the worst in terms of addressing climate change, but I'm hopeful that we'll see ... some movement."
'Not embarrassing'
Howard bumped into Flannery as the scientist came out of the radio studio where the interview was conducted, in Parliament House in Canberra. They shook hands warmly, and Flannery thanked him for the honour.
In his interview, Howard denied Flannery's criticism was embarrassing. "Does it embarrass me? No, it doesn't," he said. "We do live in a democracy and I'm not so thin skinned and so desiring in uniformity that I want every Australian of the year to engage in fulsome praise of the government or of me."
Flannery, author of The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, says the world has just two decades to avert catastrophic climate change.
"Hard steps are now required where a decade ago we may have been able to take smaller and easier ones," Flannery said.
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