APEC to fight shy of greenhouse gas targets (Roundup)

Aug 18, 2007, 11:15 GMT

Sydney - Asia-Pacific leaders meeting in Australia next month are expected to toe the US line that advanced technology and not Kyoto-style emissions reduction targets is the right antidote to climate change, officials said Saturday.

Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, commenting on a leaked draft of the APEC meeting's final communiqué, said the delegates would not commit to the binding reductions targets that characterize the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

'You've got to remember that most of the fastest-growing industrializing economies, China being the classic case ... are not going to agree to binding targets on the basis of the Kyoto model,' Turnbull told national broadcaster ABC.

Turnbull was commenting on a leaked draft of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting closing statement that says energy efficiency and preserving forests as carbon sinks are the way forward on abating climate change - not emissions reductions targets.

The draft sets great store on cleaning up coal-fired power stations and the role of nuclear power in reducing carbon emissions.

US President George W Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard are both fiercely opposed to targets for reducing emissions and are the only two leaders of the developed world to have refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol that sets country targets for reductions.

'This is a 'Made in the USA' declaration, covered in Australian coal dust,' Ben Pearson, from the environmental lobby group Greenpeace, told The Sydney Morning Herald. 'It's Bush and Howard trying to look good for elections but actually doing nothing.'

Kerry Nettle, who represents the Greens in federal parliament, said that APEC's apparent intention to duck binding targets and embrace just 'aspirational goals' was deeply disappointing.

'We need our leaders to be tackling this as a serious issue and that means committing to definitive targets as occurred in the Kyoto Protocol,' Nettle said. 'We don't need George Bush and John Howard trying to take us backwards from what we achieved as an international community under the Kyoto Protocol.'

Opposition Labor Party environment spokesman Peter Garrett lambasted Howard for being a Kyoto recalcitrant and continuing to duck the setting of targets.

'The APEC document, if accurate, doesn't include a commitment to a binding target alongside acknowledgement of UN processes and it exposes the government's weak and inconsistent position on climate change,' Garrett said.

Bush will arrive in Sydney for the APEC leaders' meeting on September 4 and leave before it ends on the following Sunday, when the closing declaration will be issued.

Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Vietnam comprise APEC, which represents half of world trade, a third of its population and 60 per cent of the output of goods and services.