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.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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