News Item - Australia Ratifies Kyoto Treaty

Newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made good on his campaign promise of ratifying the Kyoto Treaty. Australia, along with the United States, were the only two of the world's wealthiest nations not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocols. At the time of the agreement in 1997, China and India, were not bound to the same targets for reduction in greenhouse gases because of their developing-nation status.