Australia accused of exploiting emissions dodge By Peter Hannam and Tom Arup Australia is under fire at the Paris climate talks amid concern it is taking advantage of overly flexible rules to claim greenhouse gas emissions are falling when they are actually on the increase.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull drew applause from fellow leaders at Monday's summit opening when he declared that Australia would ratify the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol - the existing climate treaty that applies to some industrialised countries only. 
Australia is relying on its negotiating teams securing a definition of emissions that allows the country to count a reduction in deforestation towards its target.
However, delegates from a grouping called the Association of Small Island States expressed concern that the definition would in reality allow Australia to increase its industrial emissions by 2020 to about 11per cent above 2000 levels while still being able to claim it is meeting its target of a 5per cent cut in that period.
A senior South African delegate said Australia was playing within the rules as laid out.
Such rules may be tightened during the Paris talks - but only for post- 2020 emissions.
A member of a major country negotiating team told Fairfax Media that observers who did not think there was a problem were either unaware of the technical issues involved or making a "strategic assessment that it is not worth making a fuss over".
That is because dispute over the Kyoto Protocol only relates to emissions up to 2020, and the main game at the Paris summit is winning support for a long-term future where the world's nations will become net- zero emitters.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt said Australia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
"The Prime Minister made a clear commitment this week to ratification," Mr Hunt said. "We're fully confident that the rules will remain as they are and accommodate all of our objectives."
Former Greens leader Christine Milne, in Paris as a global Greens ambassador, said work by the University of Melbourne had detailed accounting issues that allowed Australia's emissions to rise even as the country met formal commitments to cut them.
Australia has only to reduce emissions by 0.5per cent each year between 2013 and 2020 to meet its second-stage Kyoto commitments.
Estimates suggest the favourable ruling allowing reduced deforestation to be counted against industrial and other greenhouse gas emissions would amount to between 60 and 120million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
It is roughly equivalent to the amount the government has signed contracts to pay for through its Direct Action emissions reduction fund - 92million tonnes, at a cost of about $1.22billion.
Australia also went into the second period of the Kyoto Protocol with a large batch of "surplus" emissions credits, gained when they beat their target for the first period. That target actually allowed Australia to increase emissions by 8per cent between 1990 and 2012.
The surplus credits are now used to offset any rise in emissions between 2013 and 2020.
"Once again, Australia's relying on dodgy accounting rules to include land use ... in order to massage the figures and do nothing," Ms Milne said.
"Mr Turnbull's taken the gamble that they are going to be able to beat the world into submission."
New figures show that emissions from Australia's energy sector continue to increase.
They have risen 3.5per cent in the 15 months since the Abbott government scrapped the carbon price, according to consultants Pitt & Sherry.