APEC scrambles for climate pact

Sep 8, 2007, 2:03 GMT

Sydney - Asia-Pacific leaders meeting at the Sydney Opera House on Saturday were expected to endorse a declaration committing them to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

But the 21 leaders gathered for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Australia's biggest city have baulked at setting targets and may even delay promising any action on global warming until the Kyoto Protocol has run its course in 2012.

US President George W Bush, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Russian President Vladimir Putin and 17 other leaders are expected to agree that a 'long-term aspiration global emissions-reduction goal' will be part of the post-Kyoto fix for slowing global warming.

The UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol was thrashed out in Japan in 1997 and commits 35 industrialized countries to legally binding emissions- reductions targets. Developing countries were to join at a later date.

Bush and APEC host Australian Prime Minister John Howard opposed the binding targets and refused to ratify the protocol. They argued that meeting ambitious targets would hurt their economies and that it was wrong for only rich countries to bear the cost of addressing climate change.

The US is the single biggest polluter and Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter, leads the emissions rankings on a per capita basis because of its almost exclusive reliance on coal for power generation.

Environmental campaigner Abigail Jabines from international lobby group Greenpeace accused Bush and Howard of trying to wriggle out of their climate obligations by aspiring to nothing more than 'aspirational goals' that are neither fixed nor legally binding.

'If John Howard and George Bush are sincere in addressing climate change, they should ratify Kyoto Protocol and embrace real solutions such as renewable energy and energy efficiency and set legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,' she said. 'To John Howard and George Bush - don't run away from Kyoto Protocol, just do it.'

Howard was hoping that having negotiated a Sydney Declaration enshrining a 'new flexible framework that includes a long-term global goal and encourages a wide range of natural actions by all, with ongoing review processes' would be a vote-winner at a general election in a few weeks.

He trails badly in the polls and looks set to lose to popular Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, who has pledged to sign Kyoto once in office.

China and other developing countries refused to go along with any draft that came close to setting targets. Hu said the Sydney Declaration needed to give 'full expression' to the primacy of the UN's role and acknowledge 'differentiated responsibilities.'

China is insistent on negotiating climate measures under the UN rubric because it accords the bulk of work to developed countries which, in the view of Bush and Howard, gives key polluters like China and India a free ride.

As the leaders braved showers to make their way through unprecedented security to the world-famous Opera House on Sydney's harbour foreshore, protesters gathered to harangue them under the stewardship of 3,500 police and 1,500 troops.

'Police will not tolerate unlawful, illegal or dangerous behaviour and we will take swift action,' a police statement said. 'We cannot make it any clearer.'

An estimated 4,000 protesters took to deserted rain-swept streets, most opposing the visit of Bush and the war in Iraq.

So far this week demonstrators have been outnumbered by police and there have only been a dozen arrests.

To clear the streets, a public holiday was declared, train stations closed and a 5-kilometre steel fence erected to block off APEC venues.