Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett, while cautiously welcoming the ALP decision to target a 20% reduction in greenhous gas emissions by 2020, has challenged them to set shorter term targets.

"I think it’s good to have a target for 2020...if Labor’s position is solid on that…but I do think there needs to be...a shorter term target than that."

Senator Bartlett expressed concern about the strength of Labor's commitment.

"Well it’s hard to comment on Labor policies sadly because they do seem to shift. What’s most concerning is that they seem to shift on the basis of collapsing under the political heat."

He said that it didn't matter whether developing countries ratified the Kyoto treaty or not.

"The Democrats' view is that we should have ratified Kyoto a long time ago. The protocol has a long way to go, there’s still benefit in ratifying that, not least because it will give us credibility and leverage in what comes next."

 He also warned about making policy without proper assessment.

"But all these targets need to be science based and we need to be careful there isn’t just some sort of auction."

The comments were made in the context of a longer interview recorded today for our series "The Balance of Power".