Australia’s newly elected Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, launched his premiership today by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

The bold move has reversed a decade of Australian environmental policy, and is being seen as an attempt by Mr Rudd to set out his stall as a dynamic, outward-looking leader.

The ink had barely dried at his swearing-in ceremony when Mr Rudd, who has re-energised Australia’s Labor Party with his progressive brand of centre-left politics, announced that he had made good on his campaign pledge to sign the country up to the climate change treaty.

“This is the first official act of the new Australian Government, demonstrating my government’s commitment to tackling climate change,” Mr Rudd said in a statement issued just hours after he took the oath of office.

The move, which earned Australia almost a full minute’s applause from delegates at a United Nations climate change summit in Bali, leaves the United States isolated as the only developed nation not to join the Protocol, which imposes binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr Rudd, 50, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, swept to victory in Australia’s elections nine days ago on a platform that promised to reverse much of the previous Conservative Government’s policy – not only by joining Kyoto but by withdrawing the country’s troops from Iraq and dismantling union-busting labour laws.

John Howard, the ousted former Prime Minister, had opposed the Kyoto pact on the basis that mandatory targets would damage Australia’s economy, and did not apply to up-and-coming polluters among developing countries such as China and India.

While Australia’s contribution to global emissions is relatively small in real terms, it is one of the largest polluters per capita and its stance on Kyoto is powerfully symbolic. Canberra’s dramatic turnaround will put considerable pressure on President Bush to drop his resistance to the treaty, while elevating Mr Rudd to almost heroic status among the international community.

“Australia’s official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country’s efforts to fight climate change domestically - and with the international community,” Mr Rudd said.

Mr Rudd, broadly on the right of the Labor Party, describes himself as a “moderniser” but has resisted comparisons with the “Third Way” politics of the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. However, this dynamic start to his premiership will no doubt be likened to new Labour’s policy blitz in its first 100 days of office in 1997, as will his decision to appoint Rod Eddington, the former chief executive of British Airways and close adviser to Mr Blair, as a key economic strategist.

Mr Rudd will travel to the Bali conference with ministers Peter Garrett, a former member of the rock band Midnight Oil, and Penny Wong, Australia’s first Asian-born woman in Parliament, who share responsibilities for the environment and climate change portfolio.

Mr Rudd said that his Government would do “everything in its power” to help Australia to meet its Kyoto obligations - which are set at capping greenhouse gas emissions at 108 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012.

However, at this late stage he said it was likely that Australia would incur penalties for breaching this limit, with official projections estimating greenhouse gas output at 109 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

“We’ve just got to be realistic about this, accept those unfolding realities and act on climate change, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

Josep Canadell, a Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist, said he hoped that Australia's decision would intensify pressure on the United States, which appeared to have been forced on to the backfoot at the Bali conference as its delegation insisted that it did not want to be a "roadblock".

"This comes at a critical crossroads, as it will increase the morale and the momentum to get global emission targets on the table soon after Bali,” he said.

“It’s a very significant moment for Australia both domestically and internationally and the hope is that this near-consensus by the developed world will release a snowball effect on the attitude of developing countries."

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