Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Australian Peter Garrett got famous for tunes such as ``Beds Are Burning'' as lead singer of rock band Midnight Oil. Even Prime Minister John Howard once counted himself among the song's biggest fans.

These days, Howard may be wondering if it's his bed that's on fire. Garrett is now the main opposition Labour Party's spokesman on the environment and climate change, and an unrelenting one at that. It's bad news for Howard, whose government has an impressive record on the economy, but a woeful one on the environment.

``The Howard government is again on notice that its position on climate change is untenable,'' Garrett said in a statement on his Web site this week. ``Mr. Howard has been left behind by the global business community and the Australian public.''

Australia had the highest per-capita level of greenhouse-gas emissions among developed nations in a 2004 report released by the Australia Institute. This month, a senior Treasury official, David Parker, admitted Australia hasn't done a detailed assessment of the economic effects of climate change.

Officials in Canberra had better get on that. Howard is up for re-election this year and Australia's long-running drought is focusing attention on the environment as rarely before. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Sydney this week served to remind voters that Howard was in lock-step with the Bush administration in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, which sets mandatory targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Obama's Retort

The mess that U.S. President George W. Bush has made of Iraq won't help Howard, nor will the Australian prime minister's recent quip that al-Qaeda terrorists were praying for U.S. Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat, to triumph in next year's presidential election. Obama didn't miss a beat with a retort that embarrassed Howard: If Howard is so big on the war, why isn't Australia, which has 1,400 soldiers in Iraq, deploying an extra 20,000 along with the U.S.?

Yet the environment will say more about Australia's economic future, and Garrett is turning up the heat. Howard already has been forced to backtrack on a recent comment that the jury is still out on the connection between emissions and climate change. It had him sounding like a member of the Bush White House.

A move to ban incandescent light bulbs by 2010 announced last week by Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull is a baby step that's more about politics than a sea-change in policy.

Howard Versus Gore

Howard, it's worth noting, has dismissed Al Gore's Oscar- nominated documentary ``An Inconvenient Truth'' as entertainment. Turnbull this month said the Labour Party was trying to frighten the Australian people ``with threats of a massive Al Gore-style, `Day After Tomorrow' inundation'' of climate-change risks. Howard is realizing such positions are lowering his support rate.

The prime minister is couching climate change as a choice that pits those in favor of economic growth against those who aren't. Given Australia's low population density -- 20 million people inhabiting a land mass bigger than the U.S. -- and technological savvy, Howard thinks the nation can develop cleaner coal methods without hurting the mining industry. Perhaps time will prove him right.

One wonders if it's still possible for world leaders to think in such ``either/or'' terms.

Australia's environmental challenges are really a microcosm of those facing Asia-Pacific nations. Those that do the best job of balancing growth and carbon-emission levels are likely to have the most vibrant economies in the long run. That's why, at least at the moment, Singapore's future as an Asian business hub looks more promising than, say, Hong Kong's or Shanghai's.

Green Growth

Getting hysterical on the issue isn't very constructive. Hollywood blockbusters such as ``The Day After Tomorrow'' are a case in point. Yet neither is dismissing those worried about climate change as Chicken Little-like, sky-is-falling nutcases.

Throughout Asia -- from China's polluted rivers to Hong Kong's smog to Indonesia's forest fires -- there's a sense the region is reaching its environmental limits. For decades, Asia produced the fastest growth rates that economies could withstand without financial crises. The blind pursuit of rapid gross domestic product isn't possible anymore.

Last year's climate-change report by Nicholas Stern, the U.K. government's chief economist, predicted the cost of delay will amount to between 5 percent and 20 percent of global GDP over time. One has to expect that developing economies with high poverty rates, huge populations and dodgy infrastructure will be hit hardest, undermining some of Asia's fastest-growing markets.

Unfortunately, the climate-change issue lacks leadership. The U.S. has failed in this regard; Bush's refusal to push Americans to conserve on energy use sets a dreadful example for developed and developing nations alike.

Burning Midnight Oil

While it may seem unfair to single out Australia, the world's 15th-biggest economy can do a lot better, too. It has been pushing the Group of Seven nations to allow the bigger Group of 20, of which Australia is a member, greater power over global affairs. Howard could gain that clout by leading on climate change, rather than following Washington's lead.

True, the skies of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth look nothing like those of Beijing, Jakarta or Seoul. Yet Australia's small population masks the nation's role as a major polluter on a per- capita basis. And don't forget geography; just as Chinese pollution is spreading to North Asia, Southeast Asian pollution will increasingly drift Australia's way.

If the world's richest economies expect poorer ones to avoid environmental disaster, they must clean up their own acts and burn the midnight oil to reverse climate change.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 22, 2007 15:10 EST