APEC 'should agree to long-term emissions goal'
Australia today said it would press ahead with plans to urge Pacific Rim countries to agree that limiting greenhouse gas emissions should be part of a new international pact on global warming.
In Sydney, familiar fault lines emerged between developed and developing countries on an Australian plan for the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (Apec) to reach consensus on a new approach to climate change.
China and other countries suspect that the Australian proposal, which is backed by the United States, might compel them to accept targets for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, Asian diplomats said.
Australia and the United States, the only two industrialised nations to have rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, argue that an agreement that requires rich countries to cap emissions but allows looser rules for developing nations is unfair.
As officials planned meetings today to work on a climate change statement for Apec leaders to adopt at their weekend summit, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said a new international framework on the issue could not leave out the biggest polluters.
“We will be pressing for a commitment by all Apec economies to the key elements of a genuinely global response to climate change,” Downer said in a speech to foreign correspondents.
“Australia would like to see the Apec leaders agree for the first time that a new international agreement should include an agreed long-term aspirational goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
Downer said Apec economies, which include the world’s three largest polluters in the United States, China and Russia, accounted for 60 percent of global energy demand and pumped out about the same share of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
“Apec members have an opportunity in Sydney in a few days time to help shape the global response to climate change at a crucial time,” Downer said.
An Apec declaration on climate change is not expected to include any specific targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The statement on climate change was bypassing normal Apec channels, which usually involves senior officials negotiating the wording of a statement that is then passed to ministers, and finally to leaders during their two-day retreat.
Because climate change falls so far outside Apec’s normal trade-related focus, the statement was being negotiated by specialist officials and would be handed direct to leaders, an Apec diplomat said.
